STORY- OF-THE-PLAGUE 
•IN* LONDON' 

• DANIEL - DEFOE ^ 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



®|ap. - ^mm¥ ^1 — 

Shelf.- 

UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. 



I 



LONGMANS' ENGLISH CLASSICS 

EDITED BY 

GEOEGE BICE CAEPENTEE, A.B. 

PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH COMPOSITION IN COLUMBIA COLLEGE 



DANIEL DEFOE 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR 




DANIEL DE FOE 
(After an engraving by Van der Gucht) 



longmana' Engtisb aiassics 

I/'' 

DANIEL DEFOE'S 

JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 
YEAR 

EDITED 

WITH NOTISS AND AN INTRODUCTION 
BY 

GEORGE RICE CARPENTER 

OP RHETORIC AND KNGLISH COMPOSITION IN COLUMBIA COLLEGE 




NEW YORK 
LONTGMANS, GREENT, AND CO. 

AND LONDON 
1 895 



Copyright, 1895 

BY 

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 



TROW DIRETTORY 
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY 



PREFACE 



Ui^ABLE to obtain access to a copy of the exceedingly rare 
first edition of the " Journal of the Plague Year/^ I have 
been forced to content myself with reproducing the com- 
mon text, frequently, and, it is to be feared, carelessly, re- 
printed during the present century. No alterations have 
been made except by the correction of obvious misprints, 
slight changes (for the sake of clearness and uniformity) in 
Def oe^s erratic punctuation, the omission of a few passages 
inappropriate for school use, and the rough division of the 
work into something like chapters. For this last proced- 
ure there is no warrant but necessity. No boy of to-day 
can be expected, undriven, to find his way through the 
mazes of Defoe^s narrative without some such aid. The 
method of annotation is very simple. I have merely at- 
tempted to explain such words, phrases, or allusions as 
might puzzle a young reader. Defoe^s style I have not at- 
tempted to correct, but I have frequently indicated the 
points at which his usage differs from the accepted usage 
of to-day. 

Defoe's original title, " The Journal of the Plague 
Year," has been restored in this edition. The current 
title of the work, ''The History of the Plague," comes 
from the second edition, published after Defoe's death, and, 
to all appearances, without any previous authorization by 
him of the change in name. 

G. 1{. Caupenteu. 

Columbia College, August, 181)5. 



I 



INTRODUCTION 



I. BIOGRAPHY 

The great journalist and novelist, Daniel Defoe, was born 
in a parish of London frequently referred to in the " Jour- 
nal of the Plague Year," that of St. G-iles, Cripplegate, in 
1659, of a family of Flemish extraction, whose name. Foe, 
he changed, in middle life, for reasons not easy to under- 
stand, to De Foe or Defoe. His father, a butcher by trade 
and a Dissenter by religion, placed his son, in 1673, at an 
academy near London, where he was prepared for the min- 
istry under the charge of Charles Morton, afterwards a 
prominent clergyman at Charlestown, Massachusetts, and 
vice-president of Harvard College, a man of learning and 
originality, whose excellent practice it was to drill his 
pupils, with more than usual care, in the use of their 
mother-tongue, as well as in the ancient and modern lan- 
guages. Defoe went into business, not into the ministry, 
though throughout his life his mind was at various times 
much interested in religious and ethical questions. 

Of tlie life of no famous writer of his time do we know 
less that is definite. In 1683 he was what we should call 
a commission-merchant for hosiery. In 1684 he married. 
Up to 1692, in which year he became a bankrupt, owing 
his creditors some seventeen thousand pounds, we know 
only that he had visited Spain and Portugal, and had made 
several journeys to Scotland ; that he was an active mem- 
ber, sometimes preaching, of a suburban dissenting con- 
gregation ; that, moved no doubt by patriotic and religious 
zeal, he took part in the reckless anti-Catholic rebellion 
headed ])y the Duke of Monmouth ; tliat, like Steele, liis 



viii 



INTRODUCTION 



great contemporary, lie was deejily interested in politics 
and an ardent Whig ; and that he was a member of the 
regiment of volunteers who escorted William III. to Guild- 
hall after the glorious revolution of 1689. In 1694 he 
held a small post under the government, was a large share- 
holder in a brick and tile manufactory, and in prosperous 
circumstances. 

From 1697 on, Defoe was the author of occasional polit- 
ical pamphlets, not without their influence on the affairs 
of the times, and in 1701 he became famous through an 
exceedingly clever political tract in verse, The True- 
born Englishman, defending William III. against his 
detractors, who called him a foreigner, by developing the 
very sensible argument that the English race was such a 
mongrel mixture that it ill behooved it to stickle over slight 
differences of extraction : 

" For Englishmen to boast of generation 
Cancels tlieir knowledge and lampoons tlie nation ; 
A true-born Englishman's a contradiction, 
In speech an irony, in fact a fiction." 

All London, at that time all the England to whom an au- 
thor looked for audience, laughed at Defoe's wit and skill ; 
eighty thousand pirated copies of the poem were sold, 
besides the authorized editions ; and Defoe was in high 
favor with the King and the Whigs. His pen continued 
active. A dozen other Whig pamphlets appeared in 1701, 
and eight in 1702 ; among the latter was one, The Shortest 
Way with the Dissenters,'' which, now that King William 
was dead, and the Tories in the ascendant, brought him 
into serious trouble. The tract was couched in the serious, 
ironical style which we associate chiefly with Swift, and 
purported to be the utterance of an extreme Tory and 
Church of England man, who gravely proposed to solve 
the seemingly never-ending struggle with the Dissenters by 
rigorous persecution and complete destruction. " Now 
let us crucify the thieves," are his closing words; "and 



INTRODUCTION 



ix 



may God Almiglity put it into the liearts of all friends of 
truth to lift up a standard against pride and Antichrist, 
that the posterity of the sons of error may be rooted out 
from the face of this land for ever/'' 

The effect of the tract was almost instantaneous. The 
Dissenters were alarmed. The " High-Fliers/' the extreme 
Tories, were beguiled into expressions of approval. Then 
the truth leaked out, and both parties were furious. The 
Tories secured Defoe^s punishment ; he stood three times 
in the pillory, paid a round fine, and was imprisoned for 
two years. But his shame became his glory and his dis- 
comfiture his opportunity. The plaudits of the Whig mob 
made his exposure in the pillory a public festival, at which 
was hawked about and widely sold a " Hymn to the Pil- 
lory,^^ of Defoe's own composition, not less insulting to the 
befooled Tories than the original pamphlet : 

"Tell 'em the men that placed him here 
Are scandals to the times, 
Are at a loss to find his guilt, 

And can't commit his crimes. " 

Defoe's imprisonment, doubtless wearisome and trying to 
the health, was the foundation of a great success for him 
and of lasting benefit to the nation, for, though his en- 
forced inactivity ruined his business, it led him to the 
founding of the first English paper of any importance, the 
Review, a vigorous political sheet, written for years en- 
tirely by Defoe, that had also the important object of 
amusing the public by recounting gossip of the day, thus 
becoming the prototype of Steele's Tatler (1709), which, 
in its turn, influenced profoundly the literature and the 
civilization of England and of the continent. 

From Defoe's release in 1704 until his death in 1731 we 
have only few and barren details in regard to his life. This 
is due to two causes : first, his strange taciturnity and re- 
serve, which sometimes delighted in mystifying those who 
knew and loved him best as to his employment, the state 



X 



INTRODUCTION 



of his fortune, and even his whereabouts ; and, second, the 
fact that he was during those years in peculiar relations 
with the government, which employed him in a variety of 
ways for the furtherance of political and party schemes. 
The fact that he thus served successive ministries and radi- 
cally different parties seemed at the time to be complete 
proof of dishonesty, and Addison, never particularly 
broadminded, referred to him as " a false, shuffling, pre- 
varicating rascal/^ From all that can be gathered, how- 
ever, it is anything but evident that Defoe was dishonest. 
His actions, his pamphlets, his utterances of every sort were 
singularly in accord, for the most part, with those of Steele, 
a blunt and honest Whig, if there ever was one. His secret 
services to the government, which from time to time called 
for his presence in various parts of the kingdom, seem 
never, except in the instance of his remaining as a sort of 
spy on certain Tory journals, after the Whigs came into 
power again, to have been inconsistent with a plain sense 
of public duty. Finally, even in the doubtfully diplomatic 
action just mentioned, reflection shows us that he con- 
ducted himself with scrupulous self-restraint toward his 
political opponents, using the advantage he had over them 
only so far as to attempt to modify tlleir more harmful 
extravagances of expression. His own opinions were re- 
markably constant. On the whole, the fairest and most 
succinct criticism of his conduct and his services is that of 
a contemporary paper, which, commenting upon his recent 
death, remarked : His knowledge of men, especially those 
in high life (with whom he had formerly been very con- 
versant), had weakened his attachment to any political 
party ; but in the main he was in the interest of civil and 
religious liberty, in behalf of which he appeared on several 
remarkable occasions. " 

Defoe's earnest and grave face has come down to us through 
several portraits, one of the best of which is that repro- 
duced as a frontispiece to this volume. His general ap- 
pearance is strikingly described in the proclamation issued 



INTRODUCTION 



xi 



by the government in 1703, after the publication of the 
'^'Shortest A¥ay with the Dissenters/^ offering fifty pounds 
for the discovery of his retreat : — He is a middle-sized, 
spare man, about forty years old, of a brown complexion, and 
dark-brown coloured hair, but wears a wig ; a hooked nose, 
a sharp chin, grey eyes, and a large mole near his mouth/^ 
Def oe^s strongest characteristics are those of the intellect. 
Franklin, his contemporary, was perhaps most like him. 
Both were valued political agents, both acute in estimating 
the weight of public opinion and in devising means for influ- 
encing it ; both were fertile in expedients and in projects 
for promoting the public welfare. Defoe^s accurate obser- 
vation, his clear and cold imagination, his plain and convinc- 
ing logic made him what he was and his works what they 
are. His life was, in many respects, an unhappy one. Like 
Steele, he was often in debt and in trouble ; unlike Steele, 
he was distinctly a solitary man. From his immediate re- 
lations he was frequently estranged. He died alone, in 
lodgings, under circumstances peculiarly affecting. AYith 
the reigning literary " set " he had few or no connections. 
A pious Dissenter, of the sturdy common stock that frowned 
on the play, on dice and drink, and on all current forms 
of frivolity, he was perforce isolated, by temperament, by 
breeding, by occupation and opportunity, from the fash- 
ionable life of his day. His relations with his great con- 
temporaries were few. Addison despised him. Swift made 
him the mark of a stinging epigram,^ Pope insulted him 
after his death, and Steele, though he referred to him with 
respect, could have known little of him. It is strange to 
think that this outcast from the brilliant life of the period, 
should have proved more truly famous than those then 
most highly esteemed by the critics. To a great extent the 
reputation of Swift and Pope, of Addison and Steele, is 
now confined to the bookish — the property of the educated 
and the refined, while " Robinson Crusoe " still amuses and 

' " The fellow that was pilloried, I have forgot his name."— vl Let- 
ter .. . concerning the tiacramental Teat (1708). 



xii 



INTRODUCTION 



instructs thousands^ children and common people, as well 
as grown folk scholars, in many lands and in many lan- 
guages. 

It is striking, too, to notice that Defoe is the only one of 
the great authors of Queen Amicus reign whose name is 
still borne by his direct descendants. Addison, Swift, and 
Pope were childless. Both Steele's sons died in their youth. 
But Daniel Defoe, great-great-great-grandson of the author 
of " Eobinson Crusoe " and " Captain Singleton,'' is now, 
as so many of his ancestor's favorite characters were, an 
English seaman. Butcher, author, calico-printer, box- 
maker, sailor — the list of the Defoes' trades is a fitting 
type of the permanency of the people. From among them, 
at intervals, a great genius, bone of their bone and flesh of 
their flesh, separates himself for a few decades, makes in 
literature or in art a lasting record of their unuttered 
thoughts, or feelings, or dreams ; and from him spring, 
not other geniuses, but common folk like those who bore 
him, continuing the great chain of human action and hu- 
man inheritance. 

II. WORKS 

Defoe was by far the most voluminous writer of his 
time. Not only was he for long periods connected with 
seven newspapers, of some of which he was rather the 
author than a contributor, but for a third of a century he 
wrote large numbers of political tracts and pamphlets, 
many of which appeared anonymously. A list of his writ- 
ings made by Mr. Lee, one of his most painstaking biogra- 
phers, includes two hundred and fifty-four separate publi- 
cations. This list may enumerate writings not by Defoe, 
but it is unlikely that the estimate largely exceed.^ tlie truth. 
Probably it falls below it. 

It is not, however, as a journalist and a pamphleteer that 
Defoe is known in English literature, though it was to 
such work that he gave his best years, but as a novelist. 



INTRODUCTION 



XUl 



He was sixty years old when, after a life that had brought 
him into intercourse with many kinds of men, after long 
experience as a writer, when his knowledge and his power 
were alike fully ripe, that he turned from his moral and 
political productions, from " The Family Instructor (1718) 
and A Friendly Kebuke to one Parson Benjamin (1719), 
to a narrative of the " Life and Strange, Surprizing Advent- 
ures of Eobinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner/^ The book was 
an instant success. Edition followed edition with rapidity, 
and from the very first it penetrated to an astonishing de- 
gree through the middle to the lower classes of the com- 
munity. The strong popular taste for stories of adventure 
Defoe continued to supply, either in the form of exciting 
narratives of dangerous deeds, or in the kindred form of 
somewhat sensational accounts of extraordinary phenomena. 
To the first class belong " The King of the Pirates " (1719), 
the Memoirs of a Cavalier (1720), "The Life, Advent- 
ures, and Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton 
(1720), "The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous 
Moll Flanders " (1721), " The History and Remarkable Life 
of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, vulgarly called 
Colonel Jack^^ (1722), and several others. To the second 
class belong " The History of the Life and Adventures of 
Mr. Duncan Campbell" (1720), a noted fortune-teller, the 
"Journal of the Plague Year^" (1722), and other less well- 
known productions. 

That these were the novels that Defoe wrote with seem- 
ing pleasure and the people read with evident avidity is 
interesting for several reasons. First, they were virtually 
the earliest English novels. Their predecessors had been 
metrical romances, long narratives of chivalrous deeds, 
allegories, or collections of anecdotes or facetious tales. 
No English writer before Defoe, except Bunyan, had pro- 
duced a fictitious narrative in prose that had deeply inter- 
ested the people at large. Second, a similar taste for 
simihir productions, usually known as "picaresque"^ 
' From picaro^ a Spanish word for a rogue or sliarper. 



xiv 



INTRODUCTION 



novels, was common at about this time in several other 
European literatures. Starting in Spain, it reached France, 
and then England and Germany J This singular appetite 
for the escapades of rogues and rascals was the token of a 
change in the attitude of the people toward literature. 
Literature had meant to them only the ideal and unreal 
romances of chivalry ; now it meant the realistic treatment 
of the actual life around them. The people had become 
conscious of the romance of their own making. Third, this 
interest in contemporary life as the subject-matter for 
fiction, once started, has continued almost without inter- 
ruption to the present day. Fielding and Smollett followed 
Defoe, and Thackeray and Dickens followed them. AYe 
read gladly at times resuscitations of the old chivalric 
romances, in the novels of Scott, for instance ; but we are, 
as a rule, most interested in what we know and feel belongs 
to the actual, the real, the possible, for human creatures 
such as we are, and that is why the thieving boy in " Colo- 
nel Jack,^^ the reckless young sailor in " Captain Single- 
ton,^^ and the lonely outcast in Robinson Crusoe appeal 
to us so strongly. 

Defoe's novels as a whole have certain definite character- 
istics. In the first place, they all pretend to be actual rec- 
ords of fact. There was of course no Robinson Crusoe,^' 
who wrote two volumes about his adventures and his travels. 
Defoe was a mere child at the time of the plague of 1665, 
and could have had only the most trivial recollections of it. 
Yet these books, and Defoe's books in general, took on the 
semblance of autobiographies, and were not uncommonly 
accepted as such. In the second place, all of Defoe's 
novels have a marked religious or ethical trend. Each has 
a moral lesson. That of Robinson Crusoe " is the lesson 
of work. Industry, thoughtful, prudent, and frugal liv- 
ing, the resolute bearing of misfortune, submission to the 
will of Grod, — these make even the reckless and vicious man 

• See Perry's English Literature in the Eighteenth Century, pp. 282- 
322. 



INTRODUCTION 



XV 



a happy and useful citizen. The 'SJonrnal of the Plague 
Year extols the same virtues, to be persisted in even in 
situations of the utmost terror. In the third place, Defoe^s 
novels, in spite of being fiction, and in spite of seemingly 
going out of their way at times for the sake of a moral, pro- 
duce an astonishing effect of reality. It is almost impossi- 
ble to believe, for instance, that Defoe had not lived through 
V the plague year in London as a grown man. This is due 
partly to his clever use of minute details, partly to his es- 
sential historical accuracy in the main points of the story. 



III. THE JOUENAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR 

The occasion which led to the composition of " The Jour- 
nal of the Plague Year " was an outbreak of the plague in 
southern France. Defoe, like the veteran journalist he 
was, immediately began to offer the public detailed infor- 
mation in regard to what had happened in London in the 
last visitation,^" that of 1665. His activity took three 
forms : (1) short articles in Apiolebee's Journal, a general 
periodical of the time; (2) the '^^ Journal of the Plague 
Year," published March 17, 1722 ; and (3) Due Prepara- 
tions for the Plague (1722), a volume of about the same 
size as the ^' Journal," describing, among other things, the 
different fortunes of two families in the outbreak of 1665. 
With good authorities Defoe was well supplied. Dr. IN'a- 
thaniel Hodges, a physician who remained in active service 
throughout the plague, had published, in 1672, an historical 
account of it. A collection of the bills of mortality for 
1665 had appeared. In addition to these Defoe is said to 
have made use of a pamphlet by the Eev. Thomas Vincent, 
God's Terrible Voice in the City" (1667). Brayley, in 
his valuable edition of the " Journal " (1835), declares that 
Defoe drew also from a manuscript treatise on the plague 
in London, now preserved in the British Museum, by a 
physician. Dr. William Boghurst. Besides all tliese sources 



xvi 



INTUODUCTION 



of information^ it must not be forgotten that Defoe^ with 
tlie insatiable curiosity and accurate memory so character- 
istic of him^ must have had at hand an abundance of ma- 
terial derived from eye-witnesses of the events of that fatal 
year. Add such recollections as may have been burned into 
the mind of a child^ and Ave have data enough to equip 
either an historian or a novelist. 

The two best known contemporary accounts of the plague 
are those preserved in the diaries of Evelyn and of Pepys. 
In regard to facts they agree substantially with Defoe ; 
but their point of view was radically different. Evelyn, 
scholar, official, man of letters, regarded the plague almost 
as a visitation of God upon the poor, the ravages of which 
he could contemplate with devout equanimity from his car- 
riage-windows. In his voluminous journal virtually all that 
concerns the outbreak is what is printed below : 

16 July. — There died of the plague in London this weeke 1100, 
and in the weeke following above 2000. Two houses were shut up 
in our parish. 

2 Aug. — A solemn fast thro' England to deprecate God's dis- 
pleasure against the land by pestilence and war ; our Dr preaching 
on 26 Levit : v [erses] 41, 42, that the meanes to obtain remission of 
punishment was not to repine at it. but humbly to submit to it. 

8 Aug. — I waited on the D. of Albemarle, who was resolved to 
stay at the Cock-pit in St. James's Parke. Died this week in 
London 4000. 

15 Aug. — There perished this week 5000. 

28 Aug. — The contagion still increasing and growing now all 
aboat us, I sent my Wife and whole family (two or three necessary 
servants excepted) to my Brother's at Wotton, being resolved to stay 
at my house myself e, and to looke after my charge, trusting in the 
providence and goodnesse of God 

7 Sept. — Came home, there perishing neere 10,000 poore creatures 
weekly ; however, I went all along the citt}^ and suburbs from Kent 
Streete to St. James's, a dismal passage, and dangerous to see so many 
coffines expos'd in the streetes, now thin of people ; the shops shut 
up, and all in mourneful silence, not knowing wliose turn might be 
next. I went to ye Duke of Albemarle for a pest-ship, to wait on our 
infected men, who were not a few. 

11 October. — To London, and went thro' ye whole eitty, having oc- 



INTRODUCTION 



xvii 



casion to alight out of the coacli in severall places about buisiiiesse of 
mony, when I was environ'd with multitudes of poore pestiferous 
creatures begging almes : the shops universally shut up, a dreadful 
prospect! I din'd with my Lo. General; was to receive £10,000, and 
had guards to convey both myself e and it, and so returned home, 
thro' Grod s infinite mercy. 

Pepys^'s attitude was not materially different. The 
plague interfered only slightly with his comfort, and not 
at all with his business. His light-heartedness scarcely 
flagged even during the worst months, and, like Evelyn, 
he thought of the plague mainly as a terrible affliction of 
the lower or middle classes, not likely much to trouble the 
rich, the noble, and the gay. The following extracts from 
his diary are characteristic of him and of the whole group 
of court dependents, whom Defoe speaks of so coldly, al- 
most as of a foreign race : 

September 3rd (Lord's day). — Up; and put on my coloured silk suit 
very fine, and my newperiwigg, bought a good while since, but durst 
not wear, because the plague was in Westminster when I bought it ; 
and it is a wonder what will be the fashion after the plague is done, 
as to periwigg-s, for nobody will dare to buy any haire, for fear of the 
infection, that it had been cut off the heads of people dead of the 
plague. To church, where a sorry dull parson, and so home and most 
excellent company with Mr. Hill and discourse of musique. . . . 

14th. — To London, where I have not been now a pretty while. 
. Away back again to the Beare at the Bridge foot, and 
there called for a biscuit and a piece of cheese and gill of sacke, be- 
ing forced to walk over the Bridge, toward the 'Change, and the plague 
being all thereabouts. Here my news was highly welcome, and I did 
wonder to see the 'Change so full, I believe 200 people ; but not a 
man or merchant of any fashion, but plain men all. And Lord ! to 
see how I did endeavour all I could to talk with as few as I could. 

The hero of Defoe's novel or history, whichever we 
choose to style it, was neither a scholar nor a courtier, but 
a plain man and citizen, a Dissenter, — fitting type, like 
the central character of Bunyan's great {illegory, of the 
thought and feeling of a large, perhaps a predominating, 
part of the nation, aud one almost unrepresented in the 



xviii 



INTRODUCTION 



imaginative prose literature of the time. With the atti- 
tude of mind of this central character in Defoe^s novel, 
Americans are especially familiar. Whoever has lived in 
a small New England parish^ at least, will find little diffi- 
culty in making real to himself this picture of a man who, 
without dependence on the recognized religious forms and 
procedure of an established church, justly dear and help- 
ful to so many, lived, as he firmly believed, in direct com- 
munication with God through a time of popular terror, 
led by His special providence, through signs and warnings, 
into a perilous course of life, but preserved that he might 
behold and profit by the example of God^s dealings with 
men. 

The reason why this religious romance of Defoe^s, like 
Bunyan^s Pilgrim^s Progress, has held for nearly two cen- 
turies its place in English literature, the reason why a knowl- 
edge of it is still worth making a requisite of a broad edu- 
cation, is that it is one of the most vivid pictures imagina- 
ble of the varied scenes and experiences of a great national 
calamity, such as still might conceivably overtake a large 
community. No one can read it without a healthy quick- 
ening of the sympathies, and without receiving into his 
memory a series of pictures stimulating the imagination 
and scarcely to be effaced from the memory. The nightly 
dead-carts and the links, the red crosses on the doors, the 
pit at midnight with the half-crazed mourner, the simple 
waterman, the lowly artisan wanderers ; even the seemingly 
trivial details, the untouched purse in the deserted court- 
yard, the unfrightened women pillaging the warehouse, — 
all these remain with us for years as vivid as the actual 
recollections of our childhoods. 

Defoe probably intended the moral of the " Journal 
to be submission to the will of God. But the main teach- 
ing of the book, as we see it how, is the lesson of energy, 
self-control, and forethought. Nor is it a lesson to forget 
or pass over. We who live under the constant direction of 
boards of health and under the guard of organized police, 



INTUODUGTION 



xix 



need to be brought, in fact or by imagination, among cir- 
cumstances where, as in the London of the seventeenth 
century, or in the extreme West of to-day, official law is 
weak, and the safety of the individual and the common- 
wealth depends upon the power of the citizen to protect 
himself, to act for himself, to think for himself. 

Defoe's style has been severely criticised and warmly 
praised. Undoubtedly the worst that can be said of it is 
that it is sometimes needlessly rambling and full of digres- 
sions, as in this volume, where, for instance, a score of pages 
in regard to the shutting up of houses might be entirely 
omitted or greatly condensed, so far as the effect on the mod- 
ern reader goes. On the other hand, it can be answered that 
Defoe may have had a motive for dwelling so constantly on 
that particular, topic, even by iteration and accumulative 
effect, and that, when a book has such wonderfully per- 
manent qualities as to retain its force and value for nearly 
two hundred years, it is perhaps foolish for us to determine 
how it could have been made better. A less important 
charge against Defoe's style than \^^rbosity is what we 
should call slovenliness — formless sentences, blundering 
syntax, careless vocabulary. Here again it may be fairly 
said, in defence of Defoe, that the taste of his time allowed 
great laxity in such matters, that Dryden and Steele are 
also frequently at fault when judged by standards of our 
own making, and that he wrote the vernacular, rather than 
the literary, dialect of his period. In power of producing 
illusion, of making a fictitious scene or event stand out 
with all the vividness of reality, Defoe has few equals. 
Here his success seems due largely to his homely idiom and 
to his favorite device of citing minute and trivial details. 
That the abandoned purse contained precisely such an odd 
amount of money (page 100), to quote but a single instance, 
impresses the reader with an instinctive confidence in the 
veracity of one who records, so accurately and so casually, 
such unimportant items. 



SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS 
AND STUDENTS 



The books prescribed for reading should, in the 
opinion of the editor of this volume, be so treated in the 
class-room as (1) give the pupil an adequate knowledge of 
the books themselves, and (2) as to lead him on to read 
spontaneously and with pleasure other books of the same 
sort or of cognate sorts. In pursuance of both aims he 
now ventures to suggest to such teachers, pupils, or chance 
readers as have no better plans of their own, the following 
scheme of study for the ''Journal of the Plague Year 

I. The pupiFs first step must be to read at home, or in 
his school hours for study — preferably the former — a por- 
tion of the book, varying in length from five to twenty-five 
pages, according to his age and experience. In each case 
he should read the assigned passage ttcice, first with a view 
to getting an intelligent idea of the subject - matter in 
general, and of obtaining from it as much pleasure as 
possible, and second, with a view to assuring himself that 
, he knows precisely what the author means by every word, 
sentence, and paragraph of the passage. He should not, 
of course, concern himself, in any but the rarest cases, 
with the etymology of particular words, or with the ferret- 
ing out of remote allusions. All words not to be found in 
a good dictionary, all allusions that cannot be understood 
by a boy or girl of ordinary information, are explained in 
the notes. The notes must not be relied on, however, to 
escape the discipline of reading. A pupil who does not 
have a sufficiently definite idea of common words or ex- 
pressions, which the author uses and wliicli are not ex- 



SUGGESTIONS FOR TEAGIIEUS 



XXI 



plained in the notes, to iippreciiite the author's meaning or 
the point of his allusion, must consult an encyclopaedia, a 
dictionary, or some wiser friend. 

II. The second step in the treatment of a book prescribed 
for reading is taken in the class-room. Here the instructor, 
with as little formality as possible, should make certain 
that each student has mastered the part of the book desig- 
nated, i.e., that he has an intelligent idea of the subject- 
matter, as a whole and in detail ; that he really understands 
what the au thorns object was in this particular part of his 
work ; and that he enjoys and appreciates the dominant 
qudity of the passage, whatever it may be. 

III. It is important, also, that the student should connect 
the information he obtains from the passage in question 
with the information aiforded by his other studies and by 
his own experience and observation. AVherever the " Jour- 
nal of the Plague Year,^^ for example, brings forward 
matters touched on in any other branch of study, or sug- 
gests questions of thought or action made prominent by 
local interests, the pupiFs mind should be taught to fasten 
tenaciously on these points, that he may realize the intercon- 
nection between subjects of study seemingly diverse, and 
gain a flexibility of mind that passes readily from one point 
of view to another, and makes every possible use of every 
fact and fancy it has once come into the possession of. 

IV. It is even more important that the pupil should be 
stimulated to carry on lines of study and reading which the 
prescribed book suggests. He may with profit read a short 
biography of Defoe or passages from Mr. Wright's larger 
^' Life," for more detailed information in regard to Defoe's 
life than that furnished by the Introduction. He should 
especially be encouraged to read, or reread, Robinson 
Crusoe'^ and Captain Singleton,'' not only for the sake 
of the pleasure afforded by these narratives of adventure, 
but with the thoughtfulness demanded by even works of 
fiction that reflect the character of English civilization in 
the first part of the eighteenth century. Such reading of 



xxii SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS 



fiction does much to develop in the student ',\ taste, in these 
days too frequently wholly absent, for thoughtful reading 
of all sorts, and for observation and reflection in regard to 
the life around him. 

V. The Journal of the Plague Year takes its place 
among the books prescribed for reading in 1896 and 
1897 as a representative of the literature of what is com- 
monly called the age of Queen Anne. As we have seen, it 
may well stand as an example of the literature that appealed 
to the popular taste, but it is far from being a fair example 
of the more fashionable literature of the time. The stu- 
dent, therefore, after getting a general view of the period 
from any good short history of English literature, should 
go on to read Swift^s " Gulliver's Travels " (as afford- 
ing an easy transition from Defoe^'s novels to the more 
dignified productions of Addison, Steele, and Pope), the Sir 
Koger de Coverley papers of Addison and Steele, and any- 
thing of Pope's in which he can be induced to take an iu- 
terest. 

VI. Exercises in composition based upon the book 
should not be neglected. These may be mere summaries, 
simple narratives, or descriptions. If such exercises be con- 
tinued long, however, an effort should be made to intro- 
duce other elements than that of summarizing — the mere 
giving back again, in presentable form, of facts already 
designated. The student should learn to gather facts for 
himself. It is his power of observation that needs to be 
trained, when once his power of acquiring what is pointed 
out to him is thoroughly tested. It is recommended, 
therefore, that composition subjects be chosen, us much as 
possible, after the summarizing is once done thoroughly, 
from the subjects of reading and study referred to under 
III., lY., and Y., or else from material furnished by the 
student's own life and experience. Care should be taken, 
it must also be remarked, to point out to the 2)upil the vir- 
tues and the vices of Defoe's styh\ as judged by the stand- 
ards of to-day. What the young writer must especially 



SUGGESTIONS FOB TE AGREES 



XXlll 



avoid is Defoe's careless syntax and loose sentence-structure. 
What he may wisely emulate is Defoe's wonderful skill in 
the choice of words. The teacher will do well to bring 
these rhetorical topics before the class clearly and with 
some detail in the course of the reading and discussion of 
the present volume. It should be borne in mind, however, 
that many of the editor's notes that seem at first sight to 
be corrections of Defoe's style are merely comments or ex- 
planations from the point of view of modern prose idiom 
and usage. 

VII. The following list of books may be of service. The 
best short accounts of Defoe's life are those by Mr. Leslie 
Stephen in the "Dictionary of National Biography/' by 
Mr. George A. Aitken, as a " General Introduction " to his 
reprint of the " Romances and Narratives of Daniel Defoe " 
(London : Dent), and by Mr. Saintsbury in the " Encyclo- 
paedia Britannica." Of the larger biographies, that of the 
late Professor Minto, in the English Men of Letters Series, 
is the most compact ; that of William Lee (London, 1869) 
the most detailed ; and that of Mr. Thomas Wright (New 
York, 1894) the most recent and the most interesting. 
The best critical essay on Defoe is that by Mr. Leslie 
Stephen, contained in the first series of his " Hours in a 
Library." Mrs. Oliphant's essay in the Century for Sep- 
tember, 1893, is less valuable, but more generally accessible 
and perhaps more likely to interest younger readers. 

VIII. Within the limits of a school edition it is im- 
possible to give an adequate description of the locali- 
ties mentioned in the "Journal of the Plague Year." 
'I'he counties and large places outside of London can be 
easily found on any map of England. The smaller places 
near London, or now included in London, can be found 
without great difficulty on a good map of London and 
its environs, such, for example, as that in Baedeker's 
" London." For a general idea of London, the bounds of 
the city proper, the gates, the chief wards and parishes, the 
student may consult the map in any good oncyclopa?dia. 



XXIV 



SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS 



An encyclopedia will also give him almost all the other gen- 
eral information he needs. Streets still existing may he 
readily located on an indexed map ; that in Baedeker's 
"London" is most accessible. All necessary information 
in regard to streets or buildings that have now disappeared 
will be found in Wheatley's "London^ Past and Present" 
(3 vols., London, 1891). 

A good account of the London of Charles the Second^s 
time is given in Mr. Walter Besant's '^London" (Xew 
York : Harper's ; published originally in Harper's Maga- 
zine for January, 1892). 



A JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR 



Being Observations or Memorials of the most Remarkable 
Occurrences, as well Public as Private, which 
happened in London during the last 
Great Visitation in 1665 

WRITTEN BY A CITIZEN, WHO CONTINUED ALL THE 
WHILE IN LONDON 



NEVER MADE PUBLIC BEFORE 



JOURNAL 

OF 

THE PLAGUE YEAR 



It was about the beginning of September, 1664^ that I, 
among the rest of my neighbours, heard, in ordinary dis- 
course, that the plague was returned again in Holland ; 
for it had been very violent there, and particularly at 
Amsterdam and Rotterdam, in the year 1663, whither 
they say, it was brought, some said from Italy, others from 
the Levant,^ among some goods which were brought home 
by their ^ Turkey fleet ; others said it was brought from 
Candia ; ^ others from Cyprus. It mattered not from 
whence it came ; but all agreed it was come into Holland 
again. 

We had no such thing as printed newspapers in those 
days, to spread rumours and reports of things, and to im- 
prove them by the invention of men, as I have lived to see 
practised since. ^ But such things as those were gathered 
from the letters of merchants and others, who corresponded 
abroad, and from them was ^ handed about by word of 
mouth only ; so that things did not spread instantly over 
the whole nation, as they do now. But it seems that the 

' The East Notice the derivation of the word. 
■2 The Dutch. ' Crete. 

■* The first daily paper in England, the Daily Gourant, was begun 
in 1702, and from tliat date on newspapers increased rapidly in num- 
ber and influence. Defoe himself was a pioneer in such work. His 
Weekly Review first appeared in 1704. Steele's Tatler was begun in 
1709. ^ Were. 



4 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



government had a true account of it/ and several counsels^ 
were held about ways to prevent its coming over^ but all 
was kept very private. Hence it was that this rumour 
died off again^ and people began to forget it^ as a thing 
we were very little concerned in^ and that we hoped was 
not true ; till the latter end of November, or the begin- 
ning of December, 1664, when two men, said to be French- 
men, died of the plague in Longacre, or rather at the 
upper end of Drury Lane. The family they were in en- 
deavoured to conceal it as much as possible ; but as it had 
gotten some vent ^ in the discourse of the neighbourhood, 
the secretaries of state * got knowledge of it. And con- 
cerning themselves to inquire about it, in order to be 
certain of the truth, two physicians and a surgeon were 
ordered to go to the house, and make inspection. This 
they did, and finding evident tokens^ of the sickness upon 
both the bodies that were dead, they gave their opinions 
publicly, that they died of the plague. Whereupon it was 
given in to the parish clerk, and he also returned them ^ to 
the hall ; and it was printed in the weekly bill of mor- 
tality in the usual manner, thus : 

Plague, 2. Parishes ikfected, 1. 

The people showed a great concern at this, and began 
to be alarmed all over the town, and the more, because in 
the last week in December, 1664, another man died in the 
same house, and of the same distemper : and then we 
were easy again for about six weeks, when none having 
died with any marks of infection, it was said the distemper 
was gone ; but after that, I think it was about the 12th of 
February, another died in another house, but in the same 
parish, and in the same manner. 

' The plague. Councils. ^ Publicity. 

Tlie ministry. ^ Callous spots, not unlike warts. 

« The deaths. Guildhall, tlie city hall. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



5 



This turned the people's eyes pretty much towards that 
end of the town ; ^ and the weekly bills showing an in- 
crease of burials in St. Griles's parish more than usual^ it 
began to be suspected that the plague was among the people 
at that end of the town ; and that many had died of it^ 
though they had taken care to keep it as much from the 
knowledge of the public as possible. This possessed the 
heads of the people very much, and few cared to go through 
Drury Lane, or the other streets suspected, unless they had 
extraordinary business, that obliged them to it. 

This increase of the bills stood thus ; the usual number 
of burials in a week, in the parishes of St. Guess's in the 
Fields, and St. Andrew's, Holborn, were from twelve to 
seventeen or nineteen each, few more or less ; but from the 
time that the plague first began in St. Giles's parish, it 
was observed that the ordinary burials increased in number 
considerably. For example : 



From Dec. 27th to Jan. 3rd, St. Giles's 


16 


St. Andrew's 


17 


Jan. 3rd to Jan. 10th, St. Giles's 


12 


St. Andrew's 


25 


Jan. 10th to Jan. 17th, St. Giles's 


18 


St. Andrew's 


18 


Jan. 17th to Jan. 24th, St. Giles's 


23 


St. Andrew's 


16 


Jan. 24th to Jan. 31st, St. Giles's 


24 


St. Andrew's 


15 


Jan. 31st to Feb. 7th, St. Giles's 


21 


St. Andrew's 


23 


Feb. 7th to Feb. 14th, St. Giles's 


24 



Whereof one of the plague. 

The like increase of tlie bills was observed in the par- 
ishes of St. Bride's, adjoining on one side of Holborn 

' The northern end. 



6 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



parish, and in the parish of St. James's, Clerkenwell, 
adjoining on the other side of Holborn ; in both which 
parishes the usnal numbers that died weekly were from 
four to six or eight, whereas at that time they were in- 
creased as follows : 



From Dec. 20th to Dec. 27th, St. Bride's 


0 


St. James ^ 


8 


Dec. 27th to Jan. 3rd, St. Bride's 


6 


St. James 


9 


Jan. 3rd to Jan. 10th, St. Bride's 


11 


St. James 




Jan. 10th to Jan. 17th, St. Bride's 


12 


St. James 


9 


Jan. 17th to Jan. 24th, St. Bride's 


9 


St. James 


15 


Jan. 24th to Jan. 31st, St. Bride's 


8 


St. James 


12 


Jan. 31st to Feb. 7th, St. Bride's 


13 


St. James 


5 


Feb. 7th to Feb. 14th, St. Bride's 


12 


St. James 


6 



Besides this, it was observed with great uneasiness by 
the people, that the weekly bills in general increased very 
much during these weeks, although it was at a time of the 
year when usually the bills are very moderate. 

The usual number of burials within the bills of mor- 
tality for a week was from about two hundred and forty, 
or thereabouts, to three hundred. The last was esteemed 
a pretty high bill ; but after tliis we found the bills sue- 



cessively increasing, as follows : 






Biaried. 


Increased. 


December 20 to the 27th, 


291 




27 to the 3rd Jan., 


349 


58 


January 3 to the 10th, 


394 


45 


10 to the 17th, 


415 


21 


17 to the 24th, 


474 


59 



St. James's. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



This last bill was really frightful, being a higher num- 
ber than had been known to have been^ buried in one 
week, since the preceding visitation of 1656. 

However, all this went oli again, and the weather prov- 
ing cold, and the frost, which began in December, still 
continuing very severe, even till near the end of February, 
attended with sharp though moderate winds, the bills de- 
creased again, and the city grew healthy, and everybody 
began to look upon the danger as good as over ; only that 
still the burials in St. Giles's continued high. From the 
beginning of April, especially, they stood at twenty-five each 
week, till the week from the 18tli to the 25th, when there 
was ^ buried in St. Giles's parish thirty, whereof two of the 
plague, and eight of the spotted fever,^ which was looked 
upon as the same thing ; likewise the number that died of 
the spotted fever in the whole increased, being eight the 
week before, and twelve the week above named. 

This alarmed us all again, and terrible apprehensions 
were among the people, especially the weather being now 
changed and growing warm, and the summer being at 
hand : however, the next week there seemed to be some 
hopes again, the bills Avere low, the number of the dead in 
all was but 388, there was none of the plague, and but four 
of the spotted fever. 

But the following week it returned again, and the dis- 
temper was spread into two or three other parishes, viz., 
St. Andrew's, Holborn, St. Clement's Danes, and, to the 
great affliction of the city, one died within the walls,^ in 
the parish of St. Mary Wool Church, that is to say, in 
Bearbinder Lane, near Stocks Market ; in all there were 
nine of the plague, and six of the spotted fever. It was, 
however, upon inquiry, found, that this Frenchman who 
died in Bearbinder Lane, was one who, having lived in 
Longacre, near the infected houses, had removed for fear 
of the distemper, not knowing that he was already infected. 

This was the beginning of May, yet the weather was tem- 

' To be. Were. " Typhus fever Witliin the city proper. 



8 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAQUE 



perate, variable, and cool enough, and people had still some 
hopes : that which encouraged them was, that the city was 
healthy, the Avhole ninety-seven parishes buried but fifty- 
four, and we began to hope that, as it was chiefly among 
the people at that end of the town, it might go no farther ; 
and the rather, because the next week, which was from the 
9th of May to the 16th, there died but three, of which not 
one within the whole city or liberties,^ and St. Andrew's 
buried but fifteen, which was very low. It is true, St. 
Giles's buried two-and-thirty, but still, as there was but 
one of the plague, people began to be easy ; the whole bill 
also was very low, for the week before the bill was but 347, 
and the week above mentioned but 343. We continued in 
these hopes for a few days. But it was but for a few, for 
the people were no more to be deceived thus ; they searched 
the houses, and found that the plague was really sjoread 
every way, and that many died of it every day, so that now 
all our extenuations abated,^ and it was no more to be con- 
cealed, nay, it quickly appeared that the infection had 
spread itself beyond all hopes of abatement ; that in the 
parish of St. Giles's it was gotten into several streets, and 
several families lay all sick together ; and, accordingly, 
in the weekly bill for the next week, the thing began to 
show itself ; there was,^ indeed, but fourteen set down 
of the plague, but this was all knavery and collusion ; 
for ^ St. Giles's parish they buried forty in all, whereof it 
was certain most of them died of the plague, though they 
were set down of other distempers ; and though the num- 
ber of all the burials were ^ not increased above thirty-two, 
and the whole bill being but 385, yet there Avas fourteen 
of the spotted fever, as well as fourteen of the plague ; and 
we took it for granted, upon the whole, that there were 
fifty died that week of the plague. 

^ Certain suburbs that enjoyed especial municipal privileges. 
2 Our reasons for believing the state of things better tlian it really 
was, diminished. 

^Were. • "in" has probably been omitted here. ■' Was. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



9 



The next bill was from the 23rd of May to the 30th, 
when the number of the plague was seventeen ; but the 
burials in St. Gileses were fifty-three, a frightful number ! 
of whom they set down but nine of the plague : but on an 
examination more strictly by the justices of the peace, and 
at the lord mayor's request, it was found there were twenty 
more who were really dead of the plague in that parish, 
but had been set down of the spotted fever, or other dis- 
tempers, besides others concealed. 

But those were trifling things to what followed immedi- 
ately after ; for now the weather set in hot, and from the 
first week in June the infection spread in a dreadful man- 
ner, and the bills rise^ high, the articles of the fever, 
spotted fever, and teeth,^ began to swell : for all that could 
conceal their distempers, did it to prevent their neighbours 
shunning and refusing to converse with them ; and also to 
prevent authority shutting up their houses,^ which though 
it was not yet practised, yet was threatened, and people 
were extremely terrified at the thoughts of it. 

The second week in June, the parish of St. Gileses, where 
still the weight of the infection lay, buried 120, whereof, 
though the bills said but sixty-eight of the j)lague, every- 
body said there had been a hundred at least, calculating it 
from the usual number of funerals in that parish as above. 

Till this week the city continued free, there having 
never any died except that one Frenchman, who ^ I men- 
tioned before, within the whole ninety-seven parishes. 
Now there died four within the city, one in Wood Street, 
one in Fenchur.ch Street, and two in Crooked Lane : 
South wark was entirely free, having not one yet died on 
that side of the water.-'' 

I lived without Aldgate, about midway between Aldgate 
Church and Whitechapel Bars, on the left hand or north 

^ Rose. 

'■^ A freqiient cause of disease before the days of dentistry. 
2 The shutting up of their houses by authority. 
"Whom. 6 Thames. 



10 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



side of the street ; and as the distemper had not reached to 
that side of the city, our neighbourhood continued very 
easy : but at the other end of the town their consternation 
was very great, and the richer sort of people, especially the 
nobility and gentry, from the west part of the city, thronged 
out of town, with their families and servants in an unusual 
manner ; and this was more particularly seen in White- 
chapel ; that is to say, the Broad Street where I lived : in- 
deed, nothing was to be seen but waggons and carts, with 
goods, women, servants, children, etc. ; coaches filled with 
people of the better sort, and horsemen attending them, 
and all hurrying away ; then empty waggons and carts ap- 
peared, and spare horses with servants, who, it was appar- 
ent, were returning, or sent from the country to fetch more 
people : besides innumerable numbers of men on horseback, 
some alone, others with servants, and, generally speaking, 
all loaded with baggage and fitted out for travelling, as 
any one might perceive by their appearance. 

This was a very terrible and melancholy thing to see, 
and as it was a sight which I could not but look on from 
morning to night (for indeed there was nothing else of mo- 
ment to be seen) it filled me with very serious thoughts of 
the misery that was coming upon the city, and the unhappy 
condition of those that would be left in it. 

This hurry of the people was such for some weeks, that 
there was no getting at the lord mayor's door without ex- 
ceeding difficulty, there was such pressing and crowding 
there to get j)asses and certificates of health, for such as 
travelled abroad ; for, without these, there was no being ad- 
mitted to pass through the towns upon the road, or to 
lodge in any inn. Now as there liad none died in the city 
for all this time, my lord mayor gave certitieates of health 
without any difficulty to all those who lived in the ninety- 
seven parishes, and to those within the liberties too. for 
awhile. 

This hurry, I say, continued some weeks, tliat is to say, 
all the months of May and June, and the more because it 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



11 



was rumoured that an order of the goyernment was to be 
issued out, to place turnpikes ^ and barriers on the road, to 
prevent people^s travelling ; and that the towns on the road 
would not suffer people from London to pass, for fear of 
bringing the infection along with them, though neither of 
these rumours had any foundation but in the imagination, 
especially at first. 

I now began to consider seriously with myself, concern- 
ing my own case, and how I should dispose of myself ; that 
is to say, whether I should resolve to stay in London, or 
shut up my house and flee, as many of my neighbours did. 
I have set this particular down so fully, because I know 
not but it may be of moment to those who come after me, 
if they come to be brought to the same distress, and to the 
same manner of making their choice, and therefore I desire 
this account may pass with them rather for a direction to 
themselves to act by, than a history of my actings, seeing 
it may not be of one farthing value to them to note what 
became of me. 

I had two important things before me : the one was the 
carrying on my business and shop ; which was considera- 
ble, and in wdiich was embarked all my effects in the 
world ; and the other was the preservation of my life in so 
dismal a calamity as I saw apparently was coming upon the 
whole city ; and which, however great it was, my fears per- 
haps, as well as ather people's, represented to be much 
greater than it could be. 

The first consideration was of great moment to me ; my 
trade was a saddler, and as my dealings were chiefly not by 
a shop or chance trade, but among the merchants, trading 
to the English colonies in America, so my effects lay very 
much in the hands of such. I was a single man, it is true, 
but I had a family of servants, who ^ I kept at my busi- 
ness ; had a house, shop, and warehouses filled witli goods ; 
and, in short, to leave them all as things in such a case 

' Gates forcing travellers to halt for toll or inspection. . - Whom. 



12 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



must be left, that is to say, without any overseer or person 
fit to be trusted with them, had been to hazard the loss not 
only of my trade, but of my goods, and, indeed, of all I 
had in the world. 

I had an elder brother at the same time in London, and 
not many years before come over from Portugal ; and, ad- 
vising with him, his answer was in the three words, the 
same that was given in another case quite different, viz., 
" Master, save thyself ^ In a word, he was for my retiring 
into the country, as he resolved to do himself, with his 
family ; telling me, what he had, it seems, heard abroad, 
that the best preparation for the plague was to run away 
from it. As to my argument of losing my trade, my 
goods, or debts, he quite confuted me : he told me the 
same thing which I argued for my staying, viz.. That I 
would trust God with my safety and health, was the strong- 
est repulse to my pretensions of losing my trade and my 
goods. " For," says he, is it not as reasonable that you 
should trust God with the chance or risk of losing your 
trade, as that you should stay in so eminent a point of dan- 
ger, and trust him with your life ? " 

I could not argue that I was in any strait as to a place 
where to go, having several friends and relations in North- 
amptonshire, whence our family first came from ; and, par- 
ticularly, I had an only sister in Lincolnshire, very willing 
to receive and entertain me. 

My brother, who had already sent his wife and two 
children into Bedfordshire, and resolved to follow them, 
pressed my going very earnestly ; and I had once resolved 
to comply with his desires, but at that time could get no 
horse : for, though it is true, all the people did not go out 
of the city of London, yet I may venture to say that, in a 
manner, all the horses did ; for there was hardly a horse to 
be bought or hired in the whole city, for some weeks. 
Once I resolved to travel on foot with one servant ; and, as 
many did, lie at no inn, but carry a soldier's tent Avith us, 
' St. Maltheio xxvii. 40. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 13 

and so lie in the fields^ the weather being very warm, and 
no danger from taking cold. I say, as many did, because 
several did so at last, especially those who had been in the 
armies, in the war which had not been many years past : ^ 
and I must needs say, that, speaking of second causes,^ had 
most of the people that travelled done so, the plague had 
not been carried into so many country towns and houses, 
as it was, to the great damage, and indeed to the ruin of 
abundance of people. 

But then my servant, who ^ I had intended to take down 
with me, deceived me, and, being frighted at the increase of 
the distemper, and not knowing when I should go, betook 
other measures, and left me, so I was put off for that time ; 
and, one way or other, I always found that to appoint to go 
away, was always ^ crossed by some accident or other, so 
as to disappoint ^ and put it oif again ; and this brings in 
a story which otherwise might be thought a needless di« 
gression, viz., about these disappointments being from 
heaven. 

It came very warmly into my mind, one morning, as I 
was musing on this particular thing, that, as nothing at- 
tended us without the direction or permission of Divine 
Power, so these disappointments must have something in 
them extraordinary ; and I ought to consider whether it 
did not evidently point out, or intimate to me, that it was 
the will of Heaven I should not go. It immediately fol- 
lowed in my thoughts, that, if it really was from God that 
I should stay, he was able effectually to preserve me in the 
midst of all the death and danger that would surround me ; 
and that if I attempted to secure myself by fleeing from 
my habitation, and acted contrary to these intimations, 
which I believed to be divine, it was a kind of flying from 
God, and that he could cause his justice to overtake me 
when and where he thought fit. 

iThe Civil War, 1642-1651. 

2 Causes following from first causes. 3 Whom. 

< " To be " is apparently here omitted. * To disappoint myself. 



14 



JOURXAL OF THE PLAGUE 



These thoughts quite turned my resolutions again, and 
when 1 came to discourse with my brother again, I told 
him that I inclined to stay and take my lot in that station 
in which God had placed me ; and that it seemed to be made 
more especially my duty, on the account of what I have said. 

My brother, though a very religious man himself, 
laughed at all I had suggested about its being an intima- 
tion from heaven, and told me several stories of such fool- 
hardy people, as he called them, as I was ; that I ought, 
indeed, to submit to it as a work of heaven, if I had been 
any way disabled by distempers or diseases, and that then 
not being able to go, I ought to acquiesce in the direction 
of Him, who, having been my Maker, had an undisputed 
right of sovereignty in disi^osing of me ; and that then 
there had been no difficulty to determine which was the 
call of his providence, and which was not : but that I 
should take it as an intimation from heaven that I should 
not go out of town, only because I could not hire a horse 
to go, or my fellow was run away that was to attend me, 
was ridiculous, since at the same time I had my health and 
limbs, and other servants, and might with ease travel a 
day or two on foot, and. having a good certificate of being 
in j)erfect health, might either hire a horse, or take post 
on the road, as I thought fit. 

Then he proceeded to tell me of the mischievous conse- 
quences which attend the ^^I'^^^niption of the Turks and 
Mahometans in Asia, and in other places, where he had 
been (for my brother, being a merchant, was a few years 
before, as I have already observed, returned from abroad, 
coming last from Lisbon), and how, 23resuming ujDon their 
professed predestinating notions, and of every man's end 
being predetermined, and unalterably beforehand decreed, 
they would go unconcerned into infected places, and con- 
verse with infected persons, by which means they died at 
the rate of ten or fifteen thousand a week, whereas the 
Europeans, or Christian merchants, who kept themselves 
retired and reserved, generally escaped the contagion. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



15 



Upon these arguments my brother changed my resolu- 
tions again, and I began to resolve to go, and accordingly 
made all things ready ; for, in short, the infection in- 
creased round me, and the bills were risen to almost seven 
hundred a week, and my brother told me he would venture 
to stay no longer. I desired him to let me consider of it 
but till the next day, and I would resolve ; and as I had 
already prepared everything as well as I could, as to my 
business, and who ^ to intrust my affairs with, I had little 
to do but to resolve. 

I went home that evening greatly oppressed in my mind, 
irresolute, and not knowing what to do. I had set the 
evening wholly apart to consider seriously about it, and 
was all alone ; for already people had, as it were by a gen- 
eral consent, taken up the custom of not going out of 
doors after sunset ; the reasons I shall have occasion to 
say more of by and by. 

In the retirement of this evening I endeavoured to re- 
solve ^ first what was my duty to do, and I stated the argu- 
ments with which my brother had pressed me to go into 
the country, and I set against them the strong impressions 
which I had on my mind for staying ; the visible call I 
seemed to have from the particular circumstance of my 
calling, and the care due from me for the preservation of 
my effects, which were, as I might say, my estate : also the 
intimations which I thought I had from heaven, that to 
me signified a kind of direction to venture, and it oc- 
curred to me that if I had what I call a direction to stay, 
I ought to suppose it contained a promise of being pre- 
served, if I obeyed. 

This lay close to me, and my mind seemed more and 
more encouraged to stay than ever, and supported with a 
secret satisfaction'^ that I should be kept. Add to this, 
that, turning over the Bible, which lay before me, and 
while my thoughts were more than ordinary serious upon 
the question, I cried out, ^M¥ell, I know not what to do ; 

* Whom. '■^Determine. "^Appealed strongly. 'Conviction. 



16 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



Lord direct me I" and the like; and at that juncture I 
happened to stop turning over the book, at the 91st 
Psalm, and casting my eye on the second verse, I read to 
the seventh verse exclusive ; and after that, included the 
10th, as follows: — "I will say of the Lord, he is my 
refuge, and my fortress, my God, in him will I trust. 
Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, 
and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee 
with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust : 
his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not 
be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that 
flieth by day : nor for the pestilence that walketh in dark- 
ness, nor for the destruction that wasteth at noon-day. 
A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy 
right hand ; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with 
thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the 
wicked. Because thou hast made the Lord which is my 
refuge, even the most high, thy habitation : there shall 
no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh 
thy dwelling,"^ etc. 

I scarce need tell the reader, that from that moment I 
resolved that I would stay in the town, and, casting myself 
entirely upon the goodness and protection of the Al- 
mighty, would not seek any other shelter whatever ; and 
that,^ as my times ^ were in his hands, he was as able to 
keep me in a time of the infection as in a time of health ; 
and if he did not think fit to deliver me, still I was in his 
hands, and it was meet he should do with me as should 
seem good to him. 

With this resolution I went to bed ; and I was farther 
confirmed in it the next day, by the woman being taken 
ill with whom I had intended to intrust my house and all 
my affairs. But I had a farther obligation laid on me on 
the same side, for the next day I found myself very much 
out of order also ; so that if I would have gone away, 

I I was convinced tliat. 

'■'My allotted time of life and deatli. Compare Psalms xxxi. 15. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



17 



I could not, and I continued ill three or four days, and 
this entirely determined my stay ; so I took my leave of 
my brother, who went away to Dorking, in Surrey, and 
afterwards fetched around farther into Buckinghamshire, 
or Bedfordshire, to a retreat he had found out there for 
his family. 

It was a very ill time to be sick in, for if any one com- 
plained, it was immediately said he had the plague ; and 
though I had indeed no symptoms of that distemper, yet 
being very ill, both in my head and in my stomach, I was 
not without apprehension that I really was infected, but 
in about three days "I grew better, the third night I rested 
well, sweated a little, and was much refreshed ; the appre- 
hensions of its being the infection went also quite away 
with my illness, and I went about my business as usual. 

These things, however, put off all my thoughts of going 
into the country ; and my brother also being gone, I had 
no more debate either with him, or with myself, on that 
subject. 

It was now mid July, and the plague, which had chiefly 
raged at the other end of the town, and, as I said before, 
in the parishes of St. Giles's, St. Andrew's, Holborn, 
and towards Westminster, began now to come eastward, 
towards the part where I lived. It was to be observed, 
indeed, that it did not come straight on towards us ; for 
the city, that is to say, within the walls, was indifferent ^ 
healthy still ; nor was it got then very much over the 
water into Southwark : for though there died that week 
1268 of all distempers, whereof it might be supposed above 
nine hundred died of the plague ; yet there was but 
twenty-eight in the whole city, within the walls, and but 
nineteen in Southwark, Lambeth parish included ; whereas 
in the parishes of St. Giles, and St. Martin's in the Fields 
alone, there died four hundred and twenty-one. 

But we perceived the infection kept chiefly in the out 

' Fairly. 

2 



18 



JOUnXAL OF THE PLAGUE 



parishes^, which being very i)opnlous^ and fuller also of 
poor, the distemper found more to prey upon than in the 
city, as I shall observe afterward ; we perceived, I say, the 
distemper to draw our way, viz., by the parishes of Clerk- 
en well, Cripplegate, Shoreditch, and Bishopsgate ; which 
last two parishes joining to Aldgate, Whitechapel, and 
Stepney, the infection came at length to spread its utmost 
rage and violence in those parts, even when it abated at 
the western parishes where it began. 

It was very strange to observe, that in this particular 
week, from the 4th to the 11th of July, when, as I have 
observed, there died near four hundred of the plague in 
the two parishes of St. Martin's and St. Giles's in the 
Fields only, there died in the parish of Aldgate but four, 
in the parish of Whitechapel three, in the parish of Step- 
ney but one. 

Likewise in the next week, from the 11th of July to the 
18th, when the wreck's bill was 1761, yet there died no 
more of the plague, on the whole South wark side of the 
water, than sixteen. 

But this face of things soon changed, and it began to 
thicken in Cripplegate parish especially, and in Clerken- 
well ; so that by the second week in August, Cripplegate 
parish alone buried eight hundred and eighty-six, and 
Clerkenwell one hundred and fifty-five ; of the first, eight 
hundred and fifty might well be reckoned to die of the 
plague ; and of the last, the bill itself said, one hundred 
and forty-five were of the plague. 

During the month of July, and while, as I have ob- 
served, our part of the town seemed to be spared in com- 
parison of^ the west part, I went ordinarily about the 
streets, as my business required, and particularly went 
generally once in a day, or in two days, into the city, to 
my brother's house, which he had given me charge of, and 
to see it was safe ; and having the key in my pocket, 1 
used to go into the house, and over most of the rooms, to 

1 With. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



19 



see that all was well ; for though it be something wonder- 
ful to tell^ that any should have hearts so hardened, in the 
midst of such a calamity, as to rob and steal ; yet certain 
it is that all sorts of villanies, and even levities and de- 
baucheries, were then practised in the town, as openly as 
ever, I will not say quite as frequently, because the num- 
ber of people were ^ many ways ^ lessened. 

But the city itself began now to be visited too, I mean 
within the walls ; but the number of people there were, 
indeed, extremely lessened, by so great a multitude having 
been gone ^ into the country ; and even all this month of 
July, they continued to flee, though not in such multi- 
tudes as formerly. In August, indeed, they fled in such 
a manner that I began to think there would be really none 
but magistrates and servants left in the city. 

As they fled now out of the city, so I should observe that 
the court removed early, viz., in the month of June, and 
went to Oxford, where it pleased God to preserve them ; 
and the distemper did not, as I heard of, so much as touch 
them ; for which I cannot say that I ever saw they showed 
any great token of thankfulness, and hardly anything of 
reformation, though they did not want being told that 
their crying vices might, without breach of charity, be said 
to have gone far, in bringing that terrible judgment upon 
the whole nation.^ 

The face of London was now indeed strangely altered ; I 
mean the whole mass of buildings, city, liberties, suburbs, 
Westminster, Southwark, and altogether ; for, as to the 
particular part called the city, or within the walls, that was 
not yet much infected ; but, in the whole,^ the face of 
things, I say, was much altered ; sorrow and sadness sat 
upon every face, and though some part ^ were not yet 
overwhelmed, yet all looked deeply concerned ; and as we 

' Was. '-i In many ways. ^ Having gone. 

•* The court of Charles the Second was noted for its levity and licen- 
tiousness. 

^ The whole mass. " Used collectively. 



20 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



saw it ^ apparently coming on, so every one looked on him- 
self, and his family, as in the utmost danger : were it pos- 
sible to represent those times exactly, to those that did not 
see them, and give the reader^ due ideas of the horror 
that everywhere presented itself, it must ^ make just im- 
pressions upon their minds, and fill them with surprise. 
London might well be said to be all in tears ; the mourn- 
ers did not go about the streets,"^ indeed, for nobody put 
on black, or made a formal dress of mourning for their ^ 
nearest friends ; but the voice of mourning was truly 
heard in the streets ; the shrieks of women and children 
at the windows and doors of their houses, where their near- 
est relations were, perhaps, dying or just dead, were so fre- 
quent to be heard, as we passed the streets, that it was 
enough to pierce the stoutest heart in the Avorld to hear 
them. Tears and lamentations were seen almost in every 
house, especially in the first part of the visitation ; for 
towards the latter end men^s hearts were hardened, and 
death was so always ^ before their eyes that they did not 
so much concern themselves for the loss of their friends, 
expecting that themselves ' should be summoned the next 
hour. 

Business led me out sometimes to the other end of the 
town, even when the sickness was chiefly there ; and as the 
thing was new to me, as well as to everybody else, it was a 
most surprising thing to see those streets, which were usually 
so thronged, now grown desolate, and so few people to be 
seen in them, that if I had been a stranger, and at a loss 
for my way, I might sometimes have gone the length of a 
whole street, I mean of the by-streets, and see ^ nobody to 
direct me, except watchmen set at the doors of such houses 
as were shut up ; of which I shall speak presently. 

One day, being at that part of the toAvn, on some special 
business, curiosity led me to observe things more than 
usually ; and indeed I walked a great way where I had no 

^ The plague. Readers. ^ Would. ^ ^ee EcclesiasUs ^n. ^. 
^ His. 8 Continually. They themselves. Seen. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



21 



business ; ^ I went up Holborn, and there the street was 
full of people ; but they walked in the middle of the great 
street, neither on one side or other,^ because, as I suppose, 
they would not mingle with anybody that came out of 
houses, or meet with smells and scents from houses that 
might be infected. 

The inns of court ^ were all shut up, nor were very many 
of the lawyers in the Temple, or Lincoln^s Inn, or Gray's 
Inn, to be seen there. Everybody was at peace, there was no 
occasion for lawyers ; besides, it being in the time of the 
vacation too, they were generally gone into the country. 
Whole rows of houses in some places, were shut close up, 
the inhabitants all fled, and only a watchman or two left. 

When I speak of rows of houses being shut up, I do not 
mean shut up by the magistrates ; but that great numbers 
of persons followed the court, ^ by the necessity of their 
employments, and other dependencies ; and as others re- 
tired, really frighted with the distemper, it was a mere ^ 
desolating of some of the streets : but the fright was not 
yet near so great in the city, abstractedly so called ; ^ and 
particularly because, though they were at first in a most 
inexpressible consternation, yet, as I have observed, that 
the distemper intermitted often at first, so they were as it 
were alarmed, and unalarmed again, and this several times, 
till it began to be familiar to them ; and that even when it 
appeared violent, yet seeing it did not presently spread into 
the city, or the east or south parts, the people began to 
take courage, and to be, as I may say, a little hardened. 
It is true, a vast many ^ people fled, as I have observed ; 3^et 
they were chiefly from the west end of the town, and from 
that we call the heart of the city, that is to say, among the 

' No reason for going there. Nor the other. 

^The Inns of Court are three ancient legal bodies, in London, which 
have the exclusive right of instructing candidates for the bar and of 
admitting them to practice. The name is also applied to the premises 
occupied by these bodies. 

"•The royal court. ^Complete. «The city proper. 

'The inhabitants. ^^Not a modern idiom. 



jOURXAL OF THE PLAGUE 



wealthiest of the people ; and such i^ersons as were unin- 
cumbered with trades and business. But of the rest, the 
generality stayed, and seemed to abide the worst ; so that 
in the jDlace we call the liberties, and in the suburbs, in 
Southwark, and in the east part, such as Wapping, Eatcliff, 
Stepney, Eotherhithe, and the like, the people generally 
stayed, except here and there a few wealthy families, who, 
as above, did not depend upon their business. 

It must not be forgot here, that the city and suburbs 
were prodigiously full of people ^ at the time of this visita' 
tion. I mean at the time that it began ; for though I have 
lived to see a farther increase, and mighty throngs of people 
settling in London, more than ever, yet we had always a 
notion that numbers of peoj^le, which, the wars being over, 
the armies disbanded, and the royal family and the mon- 
archy being restored,- had flocked to London to settle in 
business, or to depend upon and attend the court for re- 
wards of services, preferments,^ and the like, was^ such, 
that the town was computed to have in it above a hundred 
thousand jDCople more than ever it held before ; nay, some 
took upon them to say, it had twice as many, because all 
the ruined families of the royal party flocked hither ; all 
the soldiers set up trades here, and abundance of families 
settled here ; again, the court brought with it a great flux^ 
of pride and new fashions ; all people were gay and luxu- 
rious, and the joy of the restoration had brought a vast 
many families to London. 

But I must go back again to the beginning of this sur- 
prising time ; while the fears of the people were young, 
they were increased strangely by several odd accidents, 
which put altogether, it was really a wonder the whole 

' For statements concerning the population of London at this time, 
see Macaulay's History. 

- The Stuart dynasty was restored in 1660, in the person of Charles 
II. 

"Promotions, particularly in the church. ^ Were. ^Influx. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



23 



body of the people did not rise as one man and abandon 
their dwellings^ leaving the place as a space of ground de- 
signed by heaven for an Akeldama/ doomed to be destroyed 
from the face of the earth, and that all that would be found 
in it would perish with it. I shall name but a few of these 
things ; but sure they were so many, and so many wizards 
and cunning 2 people propagating them, that I have often 
wondered there was any (women especially) left behind. 

In the first place, a blazing star or comet appeared for 
several months before the plague, as there did, the year af- 
ter, another, a little before the fire ; ^ the old women, and 
the phlegmatic ^ hypochondriac ^ part of the other sex, whom 
I could almost call old women too, remarked, especially 
afterward, though not till both those judgments were 
over, that those two comets passed directly over the city, 
and that^ so very near the houses, that it was plain they 
imported something peculiar to the city alone. That ' the 
comet before the pestilence was of a faint, dull, languid 
colour, and its motion very heavy, solemn, and slow ; but 
that the comet before the fire was bright and sparkling, 
or, as others said, flaming, and its motion swift and 
furious, and that, accordingly, one foretold a heavy judg- 
ment, slow but severe, terrible, and frightful, as was the 
plague. But the other foretold a stroke, sudden, swift, 
and fiery, as was the conflagration ; nay, so particular some 
people were, that as they looked upon that comet preceding 
the fire, they fancied that they not only saw it pass swiftly 
and fiercely, and could perceive the motion with their eye, 
but even they heard it, that it made a rushing mighty 
noise, fierce and terrible, though at a distance, and but 
just perceivable. 

' Aceldama See St. Matthew xxvii. 8 ; Acts i. 19. 
2 Having knowledge of magic. 

^ The great fire of 1666. " Sluggish. 

^ Affected by a marked depression of spirits. The two adjectives 
contradict each other. The latter makes the best sense. 
I.e., at that or in addition to tliat. 
' This sentence is syntactically a clause of the preceding sentence. 



24 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



I saw both these stars, and,, I must confess, had had so 
much of the common notion of such things in my head, 
that I was apt to look upon them as the forerunners and 
warnings of God's judgments, and especially when^ the 
plague had followed the first, I yet saw another of the like 
kind, I could not but say, God had not j^et sufficiently 
scourged the city. 

The apprehensions of the people were likewise strangely 
increased by the error of the times, in which, I think, the 
people, from what principle I cannot imagine, were more 
addicted to prophecies, and astrological conjurations,"^ 
dreams, and old wives' tales, than ever they were before or 
since : whether this unhappy temper was originally raised 
by the follies of some people who got money by it, that is 
to say, by printing predictions and prognostications,^ I 
know not, but certain it is, books frighted them terribly ; 
such as Lily's ''Almanack," Gadbury's ''Astrological Pre- 
dictions," " Poor Eobin's Almanack,"'' and the like ; also 
several pretended religious books, one entitled, " Come out 
of Her, my People, lest ye be Partaker of her Plagues ; " ^ 
another called, "Fair Warning;" another, "Britain's 
Eemembrancer," and many such ; all, or most part of 
which, foretold, directly or covertly, the ruin of the city ; 
nay, some were so enthusiastically bold as to run about the 
streets with their oral predictions, pretending they were 
sent to preach to the city ; and one in particular, who, 
like Jonah to Nineveh, cried in the streets, "Yet forty 
days, and London shall be destroyed. " ^ I will not be posi- 
tive whether he said " yet forty days," or " yet a fcAv days." 
Another ran about naked, except a pair of drawers about 
his waist, crying day and night, like a man that Josephus 
mentions, who cried, " Woe to Jerusalem I " a little before 

* 

1 Insert " after." 

2 The invoking of the powers governing tlie stars. 
^ The two words scarcely differ in meaning. 

^ More or less well-known astrological almanacs of the time. 
^ Mevelatioii xviii. 4. " Jonah iii. 4. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



25 



the destruction of that city : so this poor naked creature 
cried, 0 ! the great, and the dreadful God and said 
no more, but repeated those words continually, with a> 
voice and countenance full of horror, a swift pace, and no- 
body could ever find him to stop, or rest, or take any sus- 
tenance, at least that ever I could hear of. I met this 
poor creature several times in the streets, and would have 
spoke to him, but he would not enter into speech with me, 
or any one else ; but kept on his dismal cries continually. 

These things terrified the people to the last degree ; and 
especially when two or three times, as I have mentioned 
already, they found one or two in the bills dead of the 
plague at St. Gileses. 

Next to these public things were the dreams of old 
women ; or, I should say, the interpretation of old women 
upon other people's dreams ; and these put abundance of 
people even out of their wits. Some heard voices warning 
them to be gone, for that there would be such a plague in 
London so that the living would not be able to bury the 
dead ; others saw apparitions in the air, and I must be al- 
lowed to say of both, I hope without breach of charity, 
that they heard voices that never spake, and saw sights 
that never appeared ; but the imagination of the people 
was really turned wayward and possessed ; and no wonder 
if they who were poring continually at the clouds, saw 
shapes and figures, representations and appearances, which 
had nothing in them but air and vapour. Here they told 
us they saw a flaming sword held in a hand, coming out of 
a cloud, with a point hanging directly over the city. 
There they saw hearses and coffins in the air carrying ^ to 
be buried. And there again, heaps of dead bodies lying 
unburied and the like ; just as the imagination of the poor 
terrified people furnished them with matter to work upon. 

So hypochondriac fancies represent 
Ships, armies, battles in tlie firmament ; 

^ An old idiom We should say, "being carried." 



26 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



Till steady eyes the exlialations solve. 
And all to its first matter, cloud, resolve. 

I could fill this account with the strange relations such 
peo|)le give every day of what they have seen ; and every 
one was so positive of their ^ having seen what they pre- 
tended to see, that there was no contradicting them, with- 
out breach of friendship, or being accounted rude and un- 
mannerly on the one hand, and profane ^ and impenetrable ^ 
on the other. One time before the plague was begun, 
otherwise than as I have said,^ in St. Giles's, I think it was 
in March, seeing a crowd of people in the street, I joined 
with them to satisfy my curiosity, and found them all star- 
ing up into the air to see what a woman told them ap- 
peared plain to her, which was an angel clothed in white, 
with a fiery sword in his hand, waving it or brandishing it 
over his head. She described every part of the figure to 
the life, showed them the motion and the form, and the 
poor people came into it so eagerly and with so much 
readiness : Yes ! I see it all plainly, says one ; " there's 
the sword as plain as can be ; " another saw the angel ; o]ie 
saw his very face, and cried out, What a glorious creature 
he was ! " One saw one thing, and one another. I 
looked as earnestly as the rest, but, perhaps, not with so 
much willingness to be imposed upon ; and I said, indeed, 
that I could see nothing but a white cloud, bright on one 
side, by the shining of the sun upon the other part. The 
woman endeavoured to show it me, but could not make me 
confess that I saw it, which, indeed, if I had, I must have 
lied : but the woman, turning to me, looked me in the 
face, and fancied I laughed, in which her imagination de- 
ceived her too, for I really did not laugh, but was seri- 
ously reflecting how the poor people were terrified by the 
force of their own imagination. However, she turned to 

' The pronouns referring to every one"' should strictly he in the 
singular number. 

Treating sacred things (here warnings from heaven) lightly. 
^ Insensible. ' As I liave elsewhere said. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



27 



me;, called me profane fellow^ and a scoffer, told me that it 
was a time of God's anger, and dreadful judgments were 
approaching, and that despisers, such as I, should wander 
and perish. 

The people about her seemed disgusted as well as she, 
and I found there was no persuading them that I did 
not laugh at them, and that I should be rather mobbed by 
them than be able to undeceive them. So I left them, and 
this appearance passed for as real as the blazing star itself. 

Another encounter I had in the open day also ; and this 
was in going through a narrow passage from Petty France 
into Bishopsgate Churchyard, by a row of almshouses; there 
are two churchyards to Bishopsgate Church or parish : 
one we go over to pass from the place called Petty France 
into Bishopsgate Street, coming out just by the church 
door ; the other is on the side of the narrow passage where 
the almshouses are on the left, and a dwarf wall with a 
palisade on it on the right hand, and the city wall on the 
other side more to the right. 

In this narrow passage stands a man looking through the 
palisades into the burying-place, and as many people as 
the narrowness of the place would admit to stop without 
hindering the passage of others, and he was talking mighty 
eagerly to them, and pointing now to one place, then to 
another, and affirming that he saw a ghost walking upon 
such a gravestone there ; he described the shape, the post- 
ure, and the movement of it so exactly, that it was the 
greatest amazement to him in the world that everybody 
did not see it as well as he. On a sudden he would cry. 

There it is ! Now it comes this way ! " then, '"Tis 
turned back ! " till at length he persuaded the people into 
so firm a belief of it, that one fancied he saw it ; and thus 
he came every day making a strange hubbub, considering 
it was so narrow a passage, till Bishopsgate clock struck 
eleven, and then the ghost would seem to start, and, as if 
lie were called away, disappeared on a sudden. 

I looked earnestly every way and at the very moment 



28 JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



that this man directed, but could not see the least appear- 
ance of anything, but so positive was this poor man that he 
gave them vapours ^ in abundance, and sent them away 
trembling and frightened, till at length few people that 
knew of it cared to go through that passage, and hardly 
anybody by night on any account whatever. 

This ghost, as the poor man affirmed, made signs to the 
houses, and to the ground, and to the people, plainly inti- 
mating, or else they so understanding it, that abundance of 
people should come to be buried in that churchyard, as 
indeed happened, but then ^ he saw such aspects, I must 
acknowledge I never believed, nor could I see anything of 
it myself, though I looked most earnestly to see it if pos- 
sible. 

Some endeavours were used to suppress the printing of 
such books as terrified the people, and to frighten the dis- 
persers ^ of them, some of whom were taken up, but noth- 
ing done in it, as I am informed, the government being 
unwilling to exasperate the people, wdio were, as I may 
say, all out of their wits already. 

Neither can I acquit those ministers, that, in their 
sermons, rather sunk than lifted up the hearts of their 
hearers ; many of them, I doubt not, did it for the strength- 
ening the resolution of the people, and especially for quick- 
ening them to repentance ; but it certainly answered not 
their end, at least not in proportion to the injury it did 
another way. 

One mischief always introduces another ; these terrors 
and apprehensions of the people led them to a thousand 
weak, foolish, and wicked things, which they wanted not 
a sort of people really wicked to encourage them to,^ and 

' Great depression of spirits. A term frequently used in the eigli- 
teentli century. 

2 Probably a misprint for " that." 
^ Those who sold them. 

^ I.e., to encourage them in which there was not wanting a sort of 
people who were really wicked 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAQUE 



29 



this was running about to fortune-tellers, cunning men, 
and astrologers, to know their fortunes, or, as it is vul- 
garly expressed, to have their fortunes told them, their 
nativities ^ calculated, and the like, and this folly pres- 
ently made the town swarm with a wicked generation 
of pretenders to magic, to the black art, as they called 
it, and I know not what ; nay, to a thousand worse 
dealings with the devil than they were really guilty of. 
and this trade grew so open and so generally practised, 
that it became common to have signs and inscriptions set 
up at doors, " Here lives a fortune-teller ; " Here lives 
an astrologer ; " " Here you may have your nativity cal- 
culated and the like ; and Friar Bacon's brazen-head,^ 
which was the usual sign of these people's dwellings, was 
to be seen almost in every street, or else the sign of 
Mother Shipton,^ or of Merlin's head,"^ and the like. 

With what blind, absurd, and ridiculous stulf these 
oracles of the devil pleased and satisfied the people, I 
really know not, but certain it is, that innumerable at- 
tendants ^ crowded about their doors every day ; and if 
but a grave fellow in a velvet jacket, a band,^ and a black 
cloak, which was the habit those quack-conjurors generally 
went in, was but seen in the streets, the people would fol- 
low them ' in crowds and ask them questions as they went 
along. 

1 To ascertain under what special influence of the heavens they 
were born. This could be discovered only by calculating" the position 
of the planets, etc., at the times of their births. 

Popular legend transformed Roger Bacon, the famous Franciscan 
monk of the thirteenth century, who was extraordinarily versed, for 
his time, in scientific matters, particularly mechanics and optics, into 
a great magician. It was said that he constructed a brazen head, 
which answered all questions he asked of it. 

A half-mythical English prophetess of the sixteentli century. 

In English legend Merlin was the famous magician of King Ar- 
thur's time. See Tennyson's Idylls of the King. 
^ Customers or patients. 

" A lace ruff, giving to the dress a slightly antique and ceremonial 
air. llim. 



30 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



The case of poor servants was very dismal, as I shall 
have occasion to mention again, by and by ; for it was ap- 
parent a prodigious number of them would be turned away, 
and it was so, and of them abundance perished, and par- 
ticularly those whom these false prophets flattered with 
hopes that they should be kept in their services and carried 
with their masters and mistresses into the country ; and 
had not public charity provided for these poor creatures, 
whose number was exceeding great, and in all cases of 
this nature must be so, they would have been in the worst 
condition of any people in the city. 

These things agitated the minds of the common people 
for many months while the first apprehensions were upon 
them, and while the plague was not, as I may say, yet 
broken out ; but I must also not forget that the more 
serious part of the inhabitants behaved after another 
manner ; the government encouraged their devotion, and 
appointed public prayers and days of fasting and humilia- 
tion, to make public confession of sin, and implore the 
mercy of God, to avert the dreadful judgment which hangs 
over their heads ; and, it is not to be expressed with what 
alacrity the people of all persuasions embraced the occa- 
sion, how they flocked to the churches and meetings, and 
they were all so thronged that there was often no com- 
ing near, even to the very doors of the largest churches : 
also, there were daily prayers appointed morning and 
evening at several churches, and days of private praying 
at other places, at all which the people attended, I say, 
with an uncommon devotion ; several private families also, 
as well of one opinion^ as another, kept family fasts, to 
which they admitted their near relations only ; so that, in 
a word, those people who were really serious and religious 
applied themselves in a truly Christian manner to the 
proper work of repentance and humiliation, as a Christian 
people ought to do. 

J Sect. 



JOURNAL OF THBJ PLAGUE 



31 



Again, the public showed that they would bear their 
share in these things ; the very court, which was then gay 
and luxarious, put on a face of just concern for the public 
danger. All the plays and interludes, which, after the 
manner of the French court, had been set up and began 
to increase among us, were forbid ^ to act ; the gaming- 
tables, public dancing rooms, and music houses, which 
multiplied and began to debauch the manners of the people, 
were shut up and suppressed ; and the jack-puddings,^ 
merry-andrews,^ puppet-shows, rope-dancers, and such-like 
doings, which had bewitched the common people, shut 
their shops, finding indeed no trade, for the minds of the 
people were agitated with other things, and a kind of sad- 
ness and horror at these things sat upon the countenances 
even of the common people ; death was before their eyes, 
and everybody began to think of their graves,^ not of mirth 
and diversions. 

But even these wholesome reflections, which, rightly 
managed, would have most happily led the people to fall 
upon their knees, make confession of their sins, and look 
up to their merciful Saviour for pardon, imploring his com- 
passion on them in such a time of their distress, by which 
we might have been as a second Nineveh,^ had a quite con- 
trary extreme in the common people : who, ignorant and 
stupid in their reflections, as they were brutishly wicked 
and thoughtless before, were now led by their fright to 
extremes of folly ; and, as I said before, that they ran to 
conjurers and witches and all sorts of deceivers, to know 
what should become of them, who fed their fears and kept 
them always alarmed and awake, on purpose to delude 
them and pick their pockets, so they were as mad upon tlieir 
running after quacks and mountebanks and every prac- 
tising old woman for medicines and remedies, storing 
themselves with such multitudes of pills, potions, and pre- 
servatives, as they were called, that they not only spent 

> Forbidden 2 clowns. 

3 His grave. * Heo Jonah iii. 5-10. 



32 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



their money but poisoned themselves beforehand for fear of 
the poison of the infection, and prepared their bodies for 
the plague instead of preserving them against it. On the 
other hand, it was incredible, and scarce to be imagined, 
how the posts of houses and corners of streets were plas- 
tered over with doctors^ bills, and papers of ignorant fellows 
quacking ^ and tampering ^ in^ physic,^ and inviting people 
to come to them for remedies, which was generally set off 
with such flourishes as these, viz., Ixpallible preventitive 
pills against the plague. Xevee-failixg preservatives 
against the infection. Sovereign cordials against the 
corruption of air. Exact regulations for the conduct of 
the body in case of infection. Antipestilential pills. Ix- 
COMPARABLE drink against the plague, never found out 
before. An uxiyersal remedy for the plague. The 
OXLY TRUE plague-water. The royal axtidote against 
all kinds of infection : and such a number more that I 
cannot reckon^ up, and, if ^ I could, would fill a book of 
themselves to set them down. 

Others set up bills to summon people to their lodgings 
for direction and advice in the case of infection ; these had 
specious titles also, such as these : 

An eminent High Dutch' physician, newly come over 
from Holland, where he resided during all the time of 
the great plague, last year, in Amsterdam, and cured 
multitudes of peoj^le that actually had the plague uj^on 
them. 

An Italian gentlewoman just arrived from Xaples, 
having a choice secret to prevent infection, which she 
found out by her great experience, and did wonderful 
cures with it in the late plague there, wherein there 
died 20,000 in one day. 

' Playing the quack. ^ Meddling. ^ ^yj^i^ 

]\redicine. Reckon them. Wliich, if. 

" From Higli or Central Germany, in distinction from the lowlands 
of Holland, and adjoining regions. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



33 



An ancient gentlewoman having practised with great 
success in the late plague in this city, anno ^ 1636, 
gives her advice only to the female sex. To be spoken 
with, etc. 

An experienced physician, who has long studied the 
doctrine of antidotes against all sorts of poison and 
infection, has, after forty years' practice, arrived at 
such skill as may, with God's blessing, direct persons 
how to prevent being touched by any contagious dis- 
temper whatsoever. He directs the poor gratis. 

I take notice of these by way of specimen ; I could give 
you two or three dozen of the like, and yet have abundance 
left behind. It is sufficient from these to apprise any one 
of the humour of those times, and how a set of thieves and 
pickpockets not only robbed and cheated the poor people 
of their money, but poisoned their bodies with odious and 
fatal preparations ; some with mercury, and some with 
other things as bad, perfectly remote from the thing pre- 
tended to, and rather hurtful than serviceable to the body 
in case an infection followed. 

I cannot omit a subtlety of one of those quack operators 
with which he gulled the poor people to crowd about him, 
but did nothing for them without money. He had, it 
seems, added to his bills, which he gave out in the streets, 
this advertisement in capital letters, viz., " He gives advice 
to the poor for nothing.'' 

Abundance of people came to him accordingly, to whom 
he made a great many fine speeches, examined them of the 
state of their health, and of the constitution of their bodies, 
and told them many good things to do which were of no 
great moment ; but the issue and conclusion of all was 
that he had a preparation, which, if they took such a 
quantity of, every morning, he would pawn his life that 
they should never have the plague, no, though they lived in 
the house with people that were infected. This made the 
' In the year. 

3 



34 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



people all resolve to have it, but then, the price of that 
was so much, I think it was half-a-crown; ^ But, sir/' says 
one poor woman, I am a poor al ms woman, ^ and am kept 
by the parish, and your bills say, you give the poor your 
help for nothing/' ''Ay? good woman,'' says the doctor, 
^'so I do, as I published there ; I give my advice, but not 
my physic !" "Alas, sir," says she, "that is a snare laid 
for the poor then, for you give them your advice for 
nothing ; that is to say, you advise them, gratis, to buy 
your physic for their money ; so does every shopkeeper 
with his wares." Here the woman began to give him ill 
words, and stood at his door all that day, telling her tale 
to all the people that came, till the doctor, finding she 
turned away his customers, was obliged to call her up- 
stairs again and give her his box of physic for nothing, 
which, perhaps too, was good for nothing when she had it. 

But, to return to the people, whose confusions fitted 
them to be imposed upon by all sorts of pretenders and by 
every mountebank. There is no doubt but these quacking 
sort of fellows raised great gains out of the miserable peo- 
ple, for we daily found the crowds that ran after them 
were infinitely greater, and their doors were more thronged 
than those of Dr. Brooks, Dr. Upton, Dr. Hodges, Dr. 
Berwick, or any, though the most famous men of the 
time ; and I was told that some of them got 5^.^ a day by 
their physic. 

But there was still another madness beyond all this, 
which may serve to give an idea of the distracted humour 
of the poor people at that time, and this was their follow- 
ing a worse sort of deceivers than any of these, for these 
petty thieves only deluded them to pick their pockets and 
get their money, in which their wickedness, whatever it 
was, lay chiefly on the side of the deceiver's deceiving, 
not upon the deceived ; but in this part I am going to 

^ About sixty cents ; then equivalent in purchasing power to several 
dollars now. 

- Dependent on charity. ^ About twenty-five dollars. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



35 



mention, it lay chiefly in the people deceived, or equally 
in both ; and this was in wearing charms, philters,^ exor- 
cisms,^ amulets/ and I know not what preparations to 
fortify the body against the plague, as if the plague was not 
the hand of God, but a kind of a possession of an evil 
spirit, and it was to be kept off with crossings, signs of the 
zodiac,^ papers tied up with so many knots, and certain 
words or figures written on them, as particularly the word 
Abracadabra,^ formed in triangle or pyramid, thus : 

ABEACADABEA 

ABRA CADABR Others had the 

ABRAOADAB Jesuits^ ^ j^ark 

ABRAOADA in across:^ 



I might spend a great deal of my time in exclamations 
against the follies, and indeed the wickednesses of those 
things, in a time of such danger, in a matter of such conse- 
quence as this of a national infection ; but my memoran- 
dums of these things relate rather to take notice of the 

' Love-potions ; here in the sense of liquids with magic powers. 
^ Forms of words used to drive out evil spirits. 
Charms worn for protection against ill-luck or witchcraft. 
Astrological signs. 
^ The letters in the triangle, it will be noticed can be read in sev- 
eral directions so as to form the meaningless word Abracadabra, much 
used in mediaeval incantations. 

^ Members of the " Company of Jesus," an order devoted to the up- 
liolding and extension of the Roman Catholic Church, are usually 
known as Jesuits. 

Usually interpreted, Itsus Iloiiiinaia SulV(ito/\ " Jesus, Saviour of 
Men." 



A B R A G A D 
A B R A G A 
A B R A G 
A B R A 
A B R 
A B 
A 



Others had nothing but 
this mark, thus : 
+ 



I H 

S 



36 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



fact, and mention only that it was so. How the poor peo- 
ple found the insufficiency of those things, and how many 
of them were afterwards carried away in the dead-carts, 
and thrown into the common graves of every parish with 
these hellish charms and trumpery hanging about their 
necks, remains to be spoken of as we go along. 

All this was the effect of the hurry the people were in, 
after the first notion of the plague being at hand was 
among them, and which may be said to be from about 
Michaelmas, 1 1664, but more particularly after the two 
men died in St. Gileses in the beginning of December ; and 
again after another alarm in February, for when the ^Dlague 
evidently spread itself, they soon began to see the folly of 
trusting to these unperf orming ^ creatures, who had gulled 
them of their money, and then their fears worked another 
way, namely, to amazement and stu^^idity, not knowing 
what course to take or what to do, either to help or to 
relieve themselves, but they ran about from one neigh- 
bour's house to another, and even in the streets, from one 
door to another, with repeated cries of Lord have mercy 
upon us, what shall we do ? 

I am supposing now the plague to have begun, as I have 
said, and that the magistrates began to take the condition 
of the people into their serious consideration ; what they 
did as to the regulation of the inhabitants, and of infected 
families I shall speak to ^ by itself ; but, as to the affair of 
health, it is proper to mention here, my having"^ seen the 
foolish humour of the people in running after quacks, 
mountebanks, wizards, and fortune-tellers, which they did 
as above even to madness. The lord mayor, a very sober 
and religious gentleman, appointed physicians and sur- 
geons for the relief of the poor, I mean the diseased poor, 
and, in particular, ordered the college of physicians to pub- 

1 The feast of St. Michael. September 2yth. 
^ I.e., not performing what they liad promised. 
3 Of. Omit ' ' my. " 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



37 



lish directions for cheap remedies for the poor in all the 
circumstances of the distemper. This, indeed, was one of 
the most charitable and judicious things that could be 
done at that time, for this drove the people from haunting 
the doors of every disperser of bills/ and from taking down 
blindly and without consideration, poison for physic, and 
death instead of life. 

This direction of the physicians was done by a consulta- 
tion of the whole college,^ and as it was particularly cal- 
culated for the use of the poor, and for cheap medicines, it 
was made public, so that everybody might see it, and 
copies were given gratis to all that desired it : but as it is 
public and to be seen on all occasions, I need not give the 
reader of this the trouble of it. 

It remains to be mentioned now what public measures 
were taken by the magistrates for the general safety, and to 
prevent the spreading of the distemper when it broke out ; 
I shall have frequent occasion to speak of the prudence of 
the magistrates, their charity, their vigilance for the poor, 
and for preserving good order, furnishing provisions, and 
the like, when the plague was increased as it afterwards 
was. But I am now upon the order and regulations 
which they published for the government of infected 
families. 

I mentioned above shutting of houses up, and it is need- 
ful to say something particularly to^ that ; for this part of 
the history of the plague is very melancholy ; but the 
most grievous story must be told. 

About June, the lord mayor of London and the court 
of aldermen, as I have said, began more particularly to 
concern themselves for the regulation of the city. 

The justices of the peace for Middlesex,'* by direction of 

' Every one who circulated advertisements. 
2 Tlie corporate body of licensed practitioners. 
^ Something particular in regard to. 

■^Almost all London is included in the county of Middlesex. 



38 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



the secretary of state, had begun to shut up houses in the 
parishes of St. Giles's in the Fields, St. Martin's, St. Clem- 
ent's Danes, etc., and it was with good success, for in 
several streets where the plague broke out, upon strict 
guarding the houses that were infected, and taking care 
to bury those that died as soon as they were known to 
be dead, the plague ceased in those streets. It was also 
observed that the plague decreased sooner in those par- 
ishes after they had been visited to the full, than it did 
in the parishes of Bishopsgate, Shoreditch, Aldgate, White- 
chapel, Stepney, and others ; the early care taken in 
that manner being a great means to the putting a check 
to it. 

This shutting up of the houses was a method first taken, 
as I understand, in the plague which happened in 1603. at 
the coming of King James the I. to the crown, and the 
power of shutting people uji in their o^m houses was 
granted by act of parliament, entitled, ••An act for the 
charitable relief and ordering of persons infected with 
plague." On which act of ^Darliament the lord mayor and 
aldermen of the city of London founded the order they 
made at this time, and which took place ^ the 1st of July, 
1665, when the numbers of infected within the city were 
but few, the last bill for the ninety-two parishes being but 
four, and some houses having been shut up in the city, 
and some people being removed to the pesthouse beyond 
, Bunhill Fields, in the way to Islington ; I say, by these 
means, when there died near one thousand a week in the 
whole, the number in the city was but twenty-eight ; and 
the city was preserved more healthy in proportion than 
any other place all the time of the infection. 

These orders of my lord mayor's were published, as I 
have said, the latter end of June, and took place from the 
1st of July, and were as follow, viz. : 



' Effect. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



39 



ORDERS COJ^-CEIVED AXD PUBLISHED BY THE LORD MAYOR 
AND ALDERME^^T OF THE CITY OE LONDOI^, CONCERKIKG 
THE IKFECTIOK OF THE PLAGUE ; 1665. 

Whereas in the reign of our late sovereign King James, 
of happy memory, an act was made for the charitable relief 
and ordering of persons infected with the plague : where- 
by authority was given to justices of the peace, mayors, 
bailiffs,^ and other head officers, to appoint within their sev- 
eral limits examiners, searchers, watchmen, keepers, and 
buriers, for the persons and places infected, and to minis- 
ter ^ unto them oaths for the performance of their offices ; 
and the same statute did also authorise the giving of their 
directions, as unto them for other present necessity should 
seem good in their discretions.^ It is now upon special 
consideration thought very expedient for preventing and 
avoiding of infection of sickness (if it shall please Almighty 
God), that these officers following be appointed, and these 
orders hereafter duly observed. 

Exammers to he afpointed to every Parish. 

First, it is thought requisite, and so ordered, that in ev- 
ery parish there be one, two, or more persons of good sort 
and credit chosen by the alderman, his deputy, and com- 
mon-council of every ward, by the name of examiners, to 
continue in that office for the space of two months at 
least : and, if any fit person so appointed shall refuse to 
undertake the same, the said parties so refusing to be com- 
mitted to prison until they shall conform themselves ac- 
cordingly. 

The Examiner'' s Office. 

That these examiners be sworn by the alderman to in- 
quire and learn from time to time what houses in every 

' Sheriffs. ' Administer. 

3/.^., for the justices, etc., to give such directions to these executive 
officers as should seem good to them for dealing with additional pres- 
ent necessities 



40 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



parish be visited, and what persons he sick, and of Avhat dis- 
eases, as near as they can inform themselves, and, npon 
doubt in that case, to command restraint of access ^ until it 
appear what the disease shall prove ; and if they find any 
person sick of the infection, to give order to the constable 
that the house be shut ujd ; and if the constable shall be 
found remiss and negligent, to give notice thereof to the 
alderman of the ward. 

Watchmen. 

That to every infected house there be appointed two 
watchmen, one for every day, and the other for the night, 
and that these watchmen have a special care that no person 
go in or out of such infected houses whereof they have the 
charge, upon pain of severe punishment. And the said 
watchmen do such farther ofiices as the sick house shall 
need and require ; and if the watchman be sent upon any 
business, to lock up the house and take the ke}" with him ; 
and the watchman by day to attend until ten o'clock at 
night, and the watchman by night until six in the morning. 

Searcliers. 

That there be a special care to appoint women -searchers 
in every parish, such as are of honest reputation, and of 
the best sort as can be got in this kind ; and these to be 
sworn to make due search and true report to the utmost of 
their knowledge, whether the jDcrsons whose bodies they are 
appointed to search do die of the infection, or of what 
other diseases, as near as they can ; and that the physicians 
who shall be appointed for the cure and prevention of the 
infection, do call before them the said searchers, Avho are, 
or shall be a^^pointed for the several parishes under their 
respective cares, to the end they may consider wlietlier 
they be fitly qualified for that employment, and charge 

' That access to the house be cut off. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAQUE 



41 



them from time to time, as tliey shall see cause, if they 
appear defective in their duties. 

That no searcher, during this time of visitation, be per- 
mitted to use ^ any public work or employment, or keep a 
shop or stall, or be employed as a laundress, or in any 
other common employment whatsoever. 

Cliirurgeons? 

For better assistance of the searchers, forasmuch as there 
has been heretofore great abuse in misreporting the disease, 
to the farther spreading of the infection, it is therefore or- 
dered that there be chosen and appointed able and discreet 
chirurgeons besides those that do already belong to the 
pesthouse ; amongst whom the city and liberties to be 
quartered ^ as they lie most apt and convenient, and every ^ 
of these to have one quarter for his limit ; and the said 
chirurgeons in every of their limits to join with the search- 
ers for the view of the body, to the end there may be a true 
report made of the disease. 

And farther, that the said chirurgeons shall visit and 
search such like persons as shall either send for them, or 
be named and directed unto them by the examiners of 
every parish, and inform themselves of the disease of the 
said parties. 

And, forasmuch as the said chirurgeons are to be seques- 
tered from all other cures,^ and kept only to this disease of 
the infection, it is ordered that every of the said chirur- 
geons shall have twelvepence a body searched by them, to 
be paid out of the goods of the party searched, if he be 
able, or otherwise by the parish. 

1 Hold, 

The older spelling (literally, " hand-workers " from the Greek) of 
" surgeons." 

^ Divided. ^ Ever^ one. Cares, duties. 



42 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



Nu rse-heepers. ^ 

If any nurse-keeper shall remove herself out of any in- 
fected house before twenty-eight days after the decease of 
any person dying of the infection, the house to which the 
said nurse-keeper doth so remove herself shall be shut up 
until the said twenty-eight days shall be expired. 

ORDERS CONCERNING INFECTED HOUSES, AND PERSONS 
SICK OF THE PLAGUE. 

Notice to he given of the Sickness. 

The master of every house as soon as any one in his house 
complaineth, either of botch,^ or purple,^ or swelling in 
any part of his body, or falleth otherwise dangerously sick 
without apparent cause of some other disease, shall give 
notice thereof to the examiner of health, within two hours 
after the said sign shall appear. 

Sequestration of the Siclc. 

As soon as any man shall be found by this examiner, 
chirurgeon, or searcher, to be sick of the plague, he shall 
the same night be sequestered in the same house, and in 
case he be so sequestered, then, though he die not, the 
house wherein he sickened shall be shut up for a month 
after the use of the due preservatives taken by the rest. 

Airing the Stuff. 

For sequestration of the goods and stuff of the infection, 
their bedding, and apparel, and hangings of chambers 
must be well aired with fire, and such perfumes as are 
requisite, within the infected house, before they be taken 
again to use. This to be done by the appointment of the 
examiner. 

^ Ntirses in charge of infected houses. - A swelling on the skin. 
" Purples, an affection of the skin marked by spots of livid red. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



43 



Shutting up of tlie House. 

If any person shall visit any man known to be infected 
of the plague^ or entereth willingly into any known in- 
fected house, being not allowed, the house wherein he in- 
habiteth shall be shut up for certain days by the examiner^s 
direction. 

None to he removed out of Infected Houses, hut, etc. 

Item/ That none be removed out of the house where he 
falleth sick of the infection, into any other house in the 
city (except it be to the pesthouse or a tent, or unto some 
such house, which the owner of the said house holdeth in 
his own hands, and occupieth by his own servants), and so 
as^ security be given to the said parish whither such re- 
move is made, that the attendance and charge ^ about the 
said visited persons shall be observed and charged ^ in all the 
particularities before expressed, without any cost of that 
parish to which any such remove shall happen to be made, 
and this remove to be done by night ; and it shall be law- 
ful to any person that hath two houses, to remove either 
his sound or his infected people to his spare house at his 
choice, so as if he send away first his sound, he do not 
after send thither the sick ; nor again unto the sick the 
sound ; and that the same which he sendeth be for one 
week, at the least, shut up, and secluded from company, 
for the fear of some infection at first not appearing. 

Burial of the Dead. 

That the burial of the dead by this visitation be at most 
convenient hours, always before sun-rising, or after sun- 
setting, with the privity'' of the church-wardens,^ or con- 
stable, and not otherwise ; and that no neighbours nor 

' Likewise. '■^ Except. Responsibility. ^ Looked to. 

^ Private knowledge and consent. 

" The legal representatives of the church in secular affairs. 



44 



JOVRXAL OF THE PLAGUE 



friends be suHered to accompany the corpse to cliurch, or 
to enter the house visited, upon pain of having his house 
shut up, or be imprisoned. 

And, that no corpse dying of the infection shall be bur- 
ied, or remain in any church in time of common prayer, 
sermon, or lecture.^ And, that no children be suffered 
at time of burial of any corpse, in any church, church- 
yard, or burying-^Dlace, to come near the corpse, coffin, or 
grave ; and, that all graves shall be at least six feet deep. 

And farther, all public assemblies at other burials are to 
be forborne during the continuance of this visitation. 

No Infected Stuff to le uttered.^ 

That no clothes, stuff, bedding, or garments, be suffered 
to be carried or conveyed out of any infected houses, and 
that the criers and carriers abroad of bedding or old aj^- 
parel to be sold or pawned, be utterly prohibited and re- 
strained, and no brokers of bedding or old apparel be per- 
mitted to make any public show, or hang forth on their 
stalls, shopboards, or windows towards any street, lane, 
common- way, or passage, any old bedding or apparel to be 
sold, upon pain of imprisonment. And if any broker or 
other person shall buy any bedding, apparel, or other stuff 
out of any infected house, within two months after the in- 
fection hath been there, his house shall be shut up as in- 
fected, and so shall continue shut up twenty days at the 
least. 

No Person to le conveyed out of any In fected House. 

If any person visited do fortune ^ by negligent looking 
unto, or by any other means, to come or be conveyed from 
a place infected to any other place, the parish from whence 
such party hath come, or been conveyed, upon notice 
thereof given, shall, at their charge,-' cause the said party 
so visited and escaped to be carried and brought back 

1 Discourse. Put iuto circulation. Chance. •» Injunction. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



45 



again by night, and the parties in this case offending to be 
punished at the direction of the alderman of the ward, and 
the house of the receiver of such visited person to be shut 
up for twenty days. 

Every Visited^ House to he marhed. 

That every house visited be marked with a red cross of a 
foot long, in the middle of the door, evident to be seen, 
and with these usual printed words, that is to say, ^^Lord 
have mercy upon us,^^ to be set close over the same cross, 
there to continue until lawful opening of the same house. 

Every Visited House to he luatched. 

That the constables see every house shut up, and to be 
attended with watchmen, which may keep in, and minister 
necessaries to them at their own charges,^ if they be able, 
or at the common charge if they be unable. The shutting 
up to be for the space of four weeks after all be whole. 

That precise order be taken that the searchers, chirur- 
geons, keepers, and buriers are not to pass the streets with- 
out holding a red rod or wand of three foot in length in 
their hands, open and evident to be seen, and are not to go 
into any other house than into their own, or into that 
whereunto they are directed or sent for, but to forbear and 
abstain from company, especially when they have been 
lately used in any such business or attendance. 

Inmates. 

That where several inmates are in one and the same 
house, and any person in that house happens to be in- 
fected, no other person or family of such house shall be 
suffered to remove him or themselves without a certificate 
from the examiners of the health of that parish, or in de- 
fault thereof, the house whither she or they remove shall 
be shut up as is in case of visitation. 

' Expense. 



46 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



Hackney- Coaches. 

That care be taken of liackney-coachmen^ that they may 
not, as some of them have been observed to do after carry- 
ing of infected persons to the pesthouse and other places, 
be admitted to common use till their coaches be well aired, 
and have stood unemployed by the space of five or six days 
after such service. 

ORDERS FOR CLEA^fSING AND KEEPING OF THE STREETS 

SWEPT. 

The Streets to le kept clean. 

First, it is thought necessary and so ordered, that every 
householder do cause the street to be daily prepared before 
his door, and so to keep it clean swept all the week long. 

That Rakers take it from out the Houses. 

That the sweeping and filth of houses be daily carried 
away by the rakers, and that the raker shall give notice of 
his coming by the blowing of a horn, as hitherto hath been 
done. 

Lay-stalls^ to he made far off from the City. 

That the lay-stalls be removed as far as may be out of 
the city and common passages, and that no nightman or 
other be suffered to empty a vault into any vault or gar- 
den near about the city. 

Care to be had of unwholesome Fish or Flesh, and of musty 

Corn. 

That special care be taken that no stinking fish, or un- 
wholesome flesh, or musty corn, or other corrupt fruits, of 
what sort soever, be suffered to be sold about the city or 
any part of the same. 

That the brewers and tippling-houses be looked unto for 
musty and unwholesome casks. 

' Literally, " lay-places; ' nibbish-heaps. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



47 



That no hogs, dogs, or cats, or tame pigeons, or conies,^ 
be suffered to be kept within any part of the city, or any 
swine to be or stray in the streets or lanes, but that such 
swine be impounded by the beadle ^ or any other officer, 
and the owner punished according to the act of common- 
council, and that the dogs be killed by the dog-killers ap- 
pointed for that purpose. 

ORDEHS COKCERIfll^G LOOSE PERSONS Al^D IDLE ASSEM- 
BLIES. 

Beggars. 

Forasmuch as nothing is more complained of than the 
multitude of rogues and wandering beggars that swarm 
about in every place about the city, being a great cause of 
the spreading of the infection, and will not be avoided^ 
notwithstanding any orders that have been given to the 
contrary : it is therefore now ordered that such constables, 
and others whom this matter may any way concern, take 
special care that no wandering beggars be suffered in the 
streets of this city, in any fashion or manner whatsoever, 
upon the penalty provided by law to be duly and severely 
executed upon them. 

Plays. 

That all plays, bear-baitings,^ games, singing of ballads, 
buckler-play,^ or such like causes of assemblies of people be 
utterly prohibited, and the parties offending severely pun- 
ished, by every alderman in his ward. 

Feasting proJiihited. 

That all public feasting, and particularly by the com- 
panies ^ of this city, and dinners in taverns, ale-houses, and 

' Rabbits. A subordinate parisb officer. 

2 Cannot be prevented from swarming about the city. 
The favorite Englisli amusement of setting large dogs on captive 
bears. 

^ Exhibitions of skill with swords and bucklers. ^ Tlie guilds. 



48 



JOURXAL OF THE PLAGUE 



other places of public entertamment, be forborne till far- 
ther order and allowance, and that the money thereby 
spared be preserved, and employed for the benefit and 
relief of the ^^oor visited with the infection. 

TippUiuj-Ho uses. 

That disorderly tippling in taverns, ale-houses, coffee- 
houses, and cellars, be severely looked unto as the common 
sin of the time, and greatest occasion of dis^^ersing the 
plague. And that no company or person be suffered to re- 
main or come into any tavern, ale-house, or coffee-house, 
to drink, after nine of the clock in the evening, according 
to the ancient law and custom of this city, upon the penal- 
ties ordained by law. 

And for the better execution of these orders, and such 
other rules and directions as upon farther consideration 
shall be found needful, it is ordered and enjoined that the 
aldermen, deputies, and common-couucil-men shall meet 
together weekly, once, twice, thrice, or oftener, as cause 
shall require, at some one general place accustomed in their 
respective wards, being clear from infection of the plague, 
to consult how the said orders may be put in execution, 
not intending that any dwelling in or near places infected 
shall come to the said meeting while their coming may be 
doubtful. And the said aldermen, deputies, and common- 
council-men. in their several wards, may put in execution 
any other orders, that by them, at their said meetings, 
shall be conceived and devised for the ^n-eservation of his 
majesty's subjects from the infection. 

Sir JoHX Lawrexce. Lord Mayor. 

Sir George Watermax. / 

o- r. ; sheriffs. 

Sir C harles Doe. \ 

I need not say that these orders extended only to such 
places as were witliin the lord mayor's jurisdiction : so it 
is requisite to observe, that the justices of peace, within 
those parishes and places as were called the hamlets and out- 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



parts, took the same method : as I remember, the orders 
for shutting up of houses did not take place so soon on 
our side, because, as I said before, the plague did not reach 
to this eastern part of the town at least, nor begin to be 
violent till the beginning of August. — For example, the 
whole bill from the 11th to the 18th of July, was 1761, yet 
there died but seventy-one of the plague in all those par- 
ishes we call the Tower Hamlets ; and they were as follows : 



Aldgate, 14 

Stepney, 33 

Whitechapel, 21 

St. Kath. Tower,! 2 

Trin. Minories,^ 1 



71 



the next 
week was 
thus : 



34 
58 
48 
4 
1 



145 



and to the 
1st of Aug. 
thus : 



65 
76 
79 
4 
4 



228 



It was indeed coming on amain, for the burials that same 
week were, in the next adjoining parishes, thus : 



St. L.3 Shoreditch 64 
St.Bot. Bishopsg.'i 65 
St. Gileses Crippl.5 213 



342 



the next week 84 
prodigiously 105 
increased, as 431 



620 



to the 1st 110 
of Aug. 116 
thus : 554 



780 



This shutting up of houses was at first counted a very 
cruel and unchristian method, and the poor people so con- 
fined made bitter lamentations ; complaints of the severity 
of it were also daily brought to my lord mayor, of houses 
causelessly, and some maliciously, shut up ; I cannot say 
but upon inquiry many that complained so loudly were 
found in a condition to be continued ; and others^ again, 
inspection being made upon the sick person,^ and the sick- 
ness not appearing infectious ; or, if uncertain, yet, on his 
being content to be carried to the pesthouse, was ^ released. 



' St. Katherine's by the Tower. 
3 St. Luke's. ^St. Botolph's, 

*'Tlie syntax is somewliat confused 
4 



'■^ Trinity Miiiories. 
Bisliopsgate. ^ Cripplegate. 



50 JOURXAL OF THE PLAGUE 

As I went along Houiidsditcli one morning about eight 
o'clock, there was a great noise : it is true, indeed, there 
was not much crowd, because the peoj^le were not very free 
to gather together, or to stay long together when they 
were there, nor did I stay long there ; but the outcry was 
loud enough to prompt my curiosity, and I called to one, 
who looked out of a window, and asked what was the mat- 
ter ? 

A watchman, it seems, had been employed to keep his 
post at the door of a house which was infected, or said to 
be infected, and was shut up ; he had been there all night, 
for two nights together, as he told his story, and the day 
watchman had been there one day, and was now come to 
relieye him ; all this while no noise had been heard in the 
house, no light had been seen, they called for nothing, 
sent him of no errands, Ayhich used to be the chief business 
of the watchmen, neither had they giyen him any disturb- 
ance, as he said, from Monday afternoon, when he heard a 
great cr3dng and screaming in the house, which, as he 
su23j)osed, was occasioned by some of the family dying 
just at that time. It seems the night before, the dead- 
cart, as it was called, had been stopt there, and a seryant- 
maid had been brought down to the door dead, and the 
buriers or bearers, as they were called, put her into the cart, 
wrapped only in a green rug, and carried her away. 

The watchman had knocked at the door, it seems, when 
he heard that noise and crying, as aboye. and nobody 
answered a great while, but at last one looked out. and 
said, with an angry, quick tone, and yet a kind of crying 
yoice. or a yoice of one that was crying, ''AVhat d'ye want, 
that you make such a knocking ?" He answered, " I am 
the watchman, how do you do ? What is the matter ? " 
The person answered. " What is that to you ? Stop the 
dead-cart. '' This it seems, was about one o'clock ; soon 
after, as the fellow said, he stopped the dead-cart, and then 
knocked again, but nobody answered ; he continued knock- 
ing, and the bellman called out seyeral times. " Bring out 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



51 



your dead but nobody answered, till the man that drove 
the cart, being called to other houses, would stay no longer, 
and drove away. 

The watchman knew not what to make of all this, so he 
let them alone till the morning-man, or day- watchman, as 
they called him, came to relieve him. Giving him an ac- 
count of the particulars, they knocked at the door a great 
while, but nobody answered, and they observed that the 
window or casement, at which the person looked out who 
had answered before, continued open, being up two pair 
of stairs. 

Upon this the two men, to satisfy their curiosity, got a 
long ladder, and one of them went up to the window, and 
looked into the room, where he saw a woman lying dead 
upon the floor, in a dismal manner, having no clothes on 
her but her shift ; but though he called aloud, and putting 
in his long staff, knocked hard on the floor, yet nobody 
stirred or answered, neither could he hear any noise in the 
house. 

He came down again upon this and acquainted his fellow, 
who went up also, and finding it just so, they resolved to 
acquaint either the lord mayor, or some other magistrate 
of it, but did not olfer to go in at the window. The magis- 
trate, it seems, upon the information of the two men, 
ordered the house to be broke open, a constable and other 
persons being appointed to be present, that nothing might 
be plundered, and accordingly it was so done, when no- 
body was found in the house but that young woman, who, 
having been infected, and past recovery, the rest had left 
her to die by herself, and every one gone, having found 
some way to delude the watchman, and to get open the 
door, or get out at some back-door, or over the tops of the 
houses, so that he knew nothing of it ; and, as to those 
cries and shrieks which he heard, it was supposed they 
were the passionate cries of the family at this bitter part- 
ing, which to be sure, it was to them all, this being the 
sister to the mistress of the family. The man of the house. 



52 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



his wife, several cliilclren and servants, being all gone and 
fled, whether sick or sound, that I could never learn, nor, 
indeed, did I make much inquiry after it. 

At another house, as I was informed, in the street next 
within Aldgate, a whole family was shut up and locked in, 
because the maid-servant was taken sick ; the master of the 
house had complained by his friends to the next ^ alderman, 
and to the lord mayor, and had consented to have the maid 
carried to the pesthouse, but was refused ; so the door was 
marked with a red cross, a padlock on the outside, as above, 
and a watchman set to keep the door, according to public 
order. 

After the master of the house found there was no rem- 
edy, but that he, his wife, and his children were locked up 
with this poor distempered servant, he called to the watch- 
man, and told him he must go then and fetch a nurse for 
them to attend this poor girl, for that it would be certain 
death to them all to oblige them to nurse her, and told 
him plainly that, if he would not do this, the maid would 
perish either ^ of the distemper, or be starved for Avant of 
food, for he was resolved none of his family should go near 
her, and she lay in the garret, four story ^ high, where she 
could not cry out, or call to anybody for help. 

The watchman consented to that, and went and fetched 
a nurse, as he was appointed, and brought her to them the 
same evening ; during this interval, the master of the 
house took his opportunity to break a large hole through 
his shop into a bulk or stall, where formerly a cobbler had 
sat before or under his shop window : but the tenant, as 
may be supposed, at such a dismal time as that, was dead 
or removed, and so he had the key in his own keeping ; 
having made his way into this stall, Avhich he could not 
have done if the man had been at the door, the noise he 
Avas obliged to make being such as would have alarmed the 
watchman ; I say, having made his way into this stall, he 

1 Nearest. More stristly. "eitlier perish." 

2 A loose idiom ; compare " three yoke of oxen."' 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



53 



sat still till the watchman returned with the nurse, and all 
the next day also ; but the night following, having con- 
trived to send the watchman of another trifling errand, 
wdiich, as I take it, was to an apothecary^s for a plaster for 
the maid, which he was to stay for the making up, or some 
other such errand, that might secure his staying some 
time ; in that time he conveyed himself and all his family 
out of the house, and left the nurse and the watchman to 
bury the poor wench, that is, throw her into the cart, and 
take care of the house. 

Not far from the same place they blowed ^ up a w^atchman 
with gunpowder, and burnt the poor fellow dreadfully ; 
and while he made hideous cries, and nobody would vent- 
ure to come near to help him, the whole family that were 
able to stir got out at the windows, one story high, two 
that were left sick calling out for help. Care was taken 
to give them nurses to look after them, but the persons 
fled were never found, till after the plague was abated they 
returned ; but as nothing could be proved, so nothing 
could be done to them. 

In other cases, some had gardens and walls, or pales ^ be- 
tween them and their neighbours ; or yards and back- 
houses ; and these, by friendship and entreaties, would get 
leave to get over those walls or pales, and so go out at their 
neighbours' doors ; or, by giving money to their servants, 
)get them to let them through in the night ; so that, in 
short, the shutting up of houses Avas in nowise to be de- 
pended upon ; neither did it answer the end at all ; serv- 
ing more to make the people desperate, and drive them to 
such extremities as that they would break out at all 
adventures.'^ 

And that which was still worse, those that did thus 
break out spread the infection farther by their Avandering 
about with the distemper upon them, in their desperate 



' Blew. Stakes. 

3 Costs; whatever be tlie fortunes (adventures) tliey niiglit meet 
with. 



54 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



circumstances, than they would otherwise have clone : for, 
whoever considers all the particulars in such cases, must 
acknowledge, and cannot doubt but the severity of those 
confinements made many people desperate, and made them 
run out of their houses at all hazards, and with the plague 
visibly upon them, not knowing either whither to go, or 
what to do, or, indeed, what they did ; and many that did 
so were driven to dreadful exigencies and extremities, 
and perished in the streets or fields for mere want, or 
dropped down, by ^ the raging violence of" the fever upon 
them. Others wandered into the country, and went for- 
ward any way, as their desperation guided them, not know- 
ing whither they went or would go, till, faint and tired, 
and not getting any relief, the houses and villages on the 
road refusing to admit them to lodge, whether infected or 
no, they have perished ^ by the road side, or gotten into 
barns, and died there, none daring to come to them, or re- 
lieve them, though perhaps not infected, for nobody would 
believe them. 

On the other hand, when the plague at first seized a 
family, that is to say, when any one body of the family had 
gone out, and unwarily or otherwise catched ^ the dis- 
temper and brought it home, it was certainly known by 
the family before it was known to the officers, who, as you 
will see by the order, were appointed to examine into the 
circumstances of all sick persons, when they heard of their 
being sick. 

In this interval, between their being taken sick, and the 
examiners coming, the master of the house had leisure and 
liberty to remove himself, or all his family, if he knew 
whither to go, and many did so. But the great disaster 
was, that many did thus after they were really infected 
themselves, and so carried the disease into the houses of 
those who were so hospitable as to receive them, which, it 
must be confessed, was very cruel and ungrateful. 

I am speaking now of people made desperate by the ap- 
' From. '-'More strictly, " till they perished." ^ Caught. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



65 



prehensions of their being shut np, and their breaking out 
by stratagem or f orce^ either before or after they were shut 
up, whose misery was not lessened when they were out, 
but sadly increased. On the other hand, many who thus 
got away had retreats to go to, and other houses, where 
they locked themselves up, and kept hid till the plague 
was over ; and many families, foreseeing the approach of 
the distemper, laid up stores of provisions, sufficient for 
their whole families, and shut themselves up, and that so 
entirely that they were neither seen or heard of till the in- 
fection was quite ceased, and then came abroad sound and 
well. I might recollect several such as these, and give you 
the particulars of their management ; for, doubtless, it 
was the most effectual secure step that could be taken for 
such whose circumstances would not admit ^ them to re- 
move, or who had not retreats abroad proper for the case ; 
for, in being thus shut up, they were as if they had been a 
hundred miles olf . Nor do I remember that any one of 
those families miscarried.^ Among these, several Dutch 
merchants Avere particularly remarkable, who kept their 
houses like little garrisons besieged, suffering none to go 
in or out, or come near them ; particularly one in a court 
in Throckmorton Street, whose house looked into Drapers^ 
Garden. 

But I come back to the case of families infected, and 
shut up by the magistrates. The misery of those families 
is not to be expressed ; and it was generally in such houses 
that we heard the most dismal shrieks and outcries of the 
poor people, terrified, and even frightened to death, by 
the sight of the condition of their dearest relations, and by 
the terror of being imprisoned as they were. 

I remember, and, while I am writing this story, I think 
I hear the very sound of it : a certain lady had an only 
daughter, a young maiden about nineteen years old, and 
who was possessed of a very considerable fortune ; they 
were only lodgers in the house where they were. The 

1 Permit Their plans did not niiscan-y. 



56 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



young woman, her mother, and the maid had been abroad 
on some occasion, I do not remember what, for the house 
was not shut up ; but, about two hours after they came 
home, the young lady complained she was not well, in a 
quarter of an hour more she vomited, and had a violent 
pain in her head. " Pray God,^' says her mother, in a ter- 
rible fright, my child has not the distemper ! " The pain 
in her head increasing, her mother ordered the bed to be 
warmed, and resolved to put her to bed ; and prepared to 
give her things to sweat, Avhich was the ordinary remedy to be 
taken, when the first apprehensions of the distemper began. 

While the bed was airing, the mother undressed the 
young woman, and just as she was laid down in the bed, 
she, looking upon her body with a candle, immediately 
discovered the fatal tokens on the inside of her thighs. 
Her mother, not being able to contain herself, threw down 
her candle, and screeched out in such a frightful manner 
that it was enough to place horror upon the stoutest heart 
in the world ; nor was it one scream, or one cry, but the 
fright having seized her spirits, she fainted first, then re- 
covered, then ran all over the house, up the stairs and 
down the stairs, like one distracted, and, indeed, really 
was distracted, and continued screeching and crying out 
for several hours, void of all sense, or, at least, govern- 
ment of her senses, and, as I was told, never came thor- 
oughly to herself again. As to the young maiden, she was 
a dead corpse from that moment ; for the gangrene, which 
occasions the spots, had spread over her whole body, and 
she died in less than two hours. But still the mother con- 
tinued crying out, not knowing any thing more of her 
child, several hours after she was dead. It is so long ago 
that I am not certain, but I think the mother never re- 
covered, but died in two or three weeks after. 

I have by me a story of two brothers and their kinsman, 
who, being 1 single men, but thatMiad stayed in the city 
> Although. 2 Yet. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



57 



too long to get away, and, indeed, not knowing where to 
go to have any retreat, nor having wherewith to travel far, 
took a course for their own preservation, which, though in 
itself at first desperate, yet was so natural, that it may be 
wondered that no more did so at that time. They were 
but of mean condition, and yet not so very poor as that 
they could not furnish themselves with some little con- 
veniences, such as might serve to keep life and soul to- 
gether ; and, finding the distemper increasing in a terrible 
manner, they resolved to shift as well as they could, and to 
be gone. 

One of them had been a soldier in the late wars, and 
before that in the Low Countries ;^ and, having been bred 
to no particular employment but his arms, and, besides, 
being wounded, and not able to work very hard, had for 
some time been employed at a baker's of sea-biscuit, in 
Wapping. 

The brother of this man was a seaman, too, but, some- 
how or other, had been hurt of one leg, that ^ he could not 
go to sea, but had worked for his living at a sailmaker's in 
Wapping, or thereabouts ; and being a good husband,^ had 
laid up some money, and was the richest of the three. 

The third man was a joiner or carpenter by trade, a 
handy fellow ; and he had no wealth but his box, or basket 
of tools, with the help of which he could at any time get 
his living, such a time as this excepted, wherever he went, 
and he lived near Shad well. 

They all lived in Stepney parish, which, as I have said, 
being the last that was infected, or at least violently, they 
stayed there till they evidently saw the plague was abating 
at the west part of the town, and coming towards the east, 
where they lived. 

The story of those three men, if the reader will be con- 
tent to have me give it in their own persons, without tak- 
ing upon me to either vouch the particulars, or answer for 
any mistakes, T shall give as distinctly as I can ; believing 
1 The Netherlands, ^ So tliat. ^ Thrifty. 



58 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



tlie history will be a very good pattern for any poor man 
to follow^ in case the like public desolation should happen 
here ; and if there may be no such occasion^ which God of 
his infinite mercy grant us, still the story may have its 
uses so many ways, as that it will, I hope, never be said 
that the relating has been unprofitable. 

I say all this previous to the history, having yet, for the 
present, much more to say before I quit my own ])m't^ 

I went all the first part of the time freely about the 
streets, though not so freely as to run myself into apparent 
danger, except when they dug the great pit in the church- 
yard of our parish of Aldgate. A terrible pit it was, and 
I could not resist my curiosity to go and see it ; as near as 
I may judge, it was about forty feet in length, and about 
fifteen or sixteen feet broad ; and, at the time I first looked 
at it, about nine feet deep ; but, it was said, they dug it 
near twenty feet deep afterwards, in one -part of it, till 
they could go no deeper for the water ; for they had, it 
seems, dug several large pits before this ; for, though the 
plague was long a coming ^ to our parish, yet. when it did 
come, there was no parish in or about London where it 
raged with such violence as in the two parishes of Aldgate 
and Whitechapel. 

I say they had dug several pits in another ground when 
the distemper began to spread in our parish, and especially 
when the dead-carts began to go about, which was not in 
our parish till the beginning of August. Into these pits 
they had put perhaps fifty or sixty bodies each ; then they 
made larger holes, wherein they buried all that the cart 
brought in a week, which, by the middle to the end of 
August, came to from two hundred to four hundred a 
week ; and they could not well dig them larger, because of 
the order of the magistrate, confining tliem to leave no 

1 Of the story. 

2 A good collo(inial idiom " A'' is a reduced form of the preposi- 
tion '• on." 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



59 



bodies within six feet of tiie surface ; and the water com- 
ing on ^ at about seventeen or eighteen feet, tliey could not 
well, I say, put more in one pit ; but now, at the begin- 
ning of September, the plague raging in a dreadful man- 
ner, and the number of burials in our parish increasing to 
more than was ever buried in any parish about London, 
of no larger extent, they ordered this dreadful gulf to be 
dug, for such it was rather than a pit. 

They had supposed this pit would have supplied them for 
a month or more, when they dug it, and some blamed the 
churchwardens for sutfering such a frightful thing, telling 
them they were making preparations to bury the whole 
parish, and the like ; but time made it appear the church- 
wardens knew the condition of the parish better than they 
did ; for, the pit being finished the 4th of September, I 
think they began to bury in it the 6th, and by the 20th, 
which was just two weeks, they had thrown into it 1114 
bodies, when they were obliged to fill it up, the bodies be- 
ing then come to lie within six feet of the surface. I 
doubt not but there may be some ancient persons alive in 
the parish, who can justify the fact of this, and are able to 
show even in what place of the churchyard the pit lay bet- 
ter than I can ; the mark of it also was many years to be 
seen in the churchyard on the surface, lying, in length, 
parallel with the passage wliich goes by the west wall of the 
churchyard, out of Houndsditch, and turns east again, 
into Whitechapel, coming out near the Three Nuns 
Inn. 

It was about the 10th of September that my curiosity 
led, or rather drove, me to go and see this pit again, when 
there had been near four hundred people buried in it ; and 
I was not content to see it in the day time, as I had done 
before, for then there would have been nothing to have 
been seen but the loose earth ; for all the bodies that were 
tlirown in were immediately covered with earth, by those 
they called the buriers, which at other times were called 

' In ? 



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bearers ; but I resolved to go in the nighty and see some of 
them thrown in. 

There was a strict order to prevent people coming to 
those pits, and that was only to prevent infection ; but, 
after some time, that order was more necessary, for people 
that were infected, and near their end, and delirious also, 
would run to those pits wrapt in blankets, or rugs, and 
throw themselves in, and, as they said, bury themselves. 
I cannot say that the officers suffered any willingly to lie 
there ; but I have heard that in a great pit in Finsbury, in 
the parish of Oripplegate, it lying open then to the fields, 
for it was not then walled about, many came and threw 
themselves in, and expired there, before they threw any 
earth upon them ; and that when they came to bury others, 
and found them there, they were quite dead, though not 
cold. 

This may serve a little to describe the dreadful condition 
of that day, though it is impossible to say anything that is 
able to give a true idea of it to those who did not see it, 
other than this, that it was indeed, very, very, very dread- 
ful, and such as no tongue can express. 

I got admittance into the churchyard by being ac- 
quainted with the sexton who attended, who, though he 
did not refuse me at all, yet earnestly persuaded me not to 
go : telling me very seriously, for he was a good, religious, 
and sensible man, that it was, indeed, their business and 
duty to venture, and to run all hazards, and that in it 
they might hope to be preserved ; but that I had no appar- 
ent call to it but my own curiosity, which, he said, he be- 
lieved I would not pretend was sufficient to justify my 
running that hazard. I told him I had been pressed in my 
mind to go, and that, perhaps, it might be an instructing 
sight, that might not be without its uses. N'ay,^^ says 
the good man, *^if you will venture upon that score, 
^Name ^ of G-od, go in ; for, depend upon it, it will be a 
sermon to you, it may be, the best tliat ever you heard in 

1 In tlie Name. 



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your life. It is a speaking sight/' says he, ''and has a 
voice with it, and a loud one, to call ns all to repentance ; " 
and with that he opened the door, and said, " Go, if you 
will/' 

His discourse had shocked my resolution a little, and I 
stood wavering for a good while, but, just at that interval, 
I saw two links ^ come over from the end of the Minories, 
and heard the bellman, and then appeared a dead-cart, as 
they called it, coming over the streets ; so I could no 
longer resist my desire of seeing it, and went in. There 
was nobody as ^ I could perceive at first, in the churchyard, 
or going into it, but the buriers, and the fellow that drove 
the cart, or rather led the horse and cart, but when they 
came up to the pit, they saw a man go to and again,^ 
muffled up in a brown cloak, and making motions with his 
hands, under his cloak, as if he was in great agony ; and 
the buriers immediately gathered about him, supposing he 
was one of those poor delirious, or desperate creatures, 
that used to pretend, as I have said, to bury themselves ; 
he said nothing as he walked about, but two or three times 
groaned very deeply, and loud, and sighed as ^ he would 
break his heart. 

When the buriers came up to him, they soon found he 
was neither a person infected and desperate, as I have ob- 
served above, or a person distempered in mind, but one 
oppressed with a dreadful weight of grief indeed, having his 
wife and several of his children, all in the cart that was 
just come in with him, and he followed in an agony and 
excess of sorrow. He mourned heartily, as it was easy to 
see, but with a kind of masculine grief, that could not give 
itself vent by tears ; and, calmly desiring the buriers to 
let him alone, said he would only see the bodies thrown 
in, and go away, so they left importuning him ; but no 
sooner was the cart turned round, and the bodies shot into 
the pit, promiscuously, which was a surprise to him, for 
he at least expected they would have been decently laid in, 
' Torches. That. ^To and fro. * As if. 



62 



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though indeed, he was afterwards convmced that was im- 
practicable ; I sa}', no sooner did he see the sight, but he 
cried out aloud, unable to contain himself. I could not 
hear what he said, but* he went backward two or three steps, 
and fell down in a swoon ; the buriers ran to him and took 
him up, and in a little while he came to himself, and they 
led him away to the Pye Tavern, over-against the end of 
Houndsditch, where, it seems, the man was known, and 
where they took care of him. He looked into the pit again, 
as he went away, but the buriers had covered the bodies so 
immediately with throwing in earth, that, though there 
was light enough, for there were lanthorns and candles in 
them, placed all night round the sides of the pit, upon the 
heaps of earth, seven or eight, or perhaps more, yet noth- 
ing could be seen. 

This was a mournful scene indeed, and affected me 
almost as much as the rest ; but the other ^ was awful, and 
full of terror ; the cart had in it sixteen or seventeen 
bodies ; some were wrapt up in linen sheets, some in rugs, 
some little other than naked, or so loose,- that what cover- 
ing they had fell from them, in the shooting out of the 
cart, and they fell quite naked among the rest ; but the 
matter was not much to them, or the indecency much to 
anyone else, seeing they were all dead, and were to be 
huddled together into the common grave of mankind, as 
we may call it, for here was no difference made, bat poor 
and rich went together ; there was no other way of burials, 
neither was it possible there should,^ for coffins were not to 
be had for the prodigious numbers that fell in such a calam- 
ity as this. 

It was reported, by way of scandal upon the buriers, that 
if any corpse was delivered to them, decently wound up, as 
we called it then, in a winding sheet tied over the head and 
feet, which some did, and which"^ was generally of good linen ; 
I say, it was reported, that the buriers were so wicked as to 

' What he now goes on to reh\te. 
So loosely wrapped. ^ Should be. ^ The sheet. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAQUE 



63 



strip them in the cart, and carry them quite naked to the 
ground : but, as I cannot credit anything so vile among 
Christians, and at a time so filled with terrors as that was, 
I can only relate it, and leave it undetermined. 

Innumerable stories also went about of the cruel behaviour 
and practice of nurses who attended the sick, and of their 
hastening on the fate of those they attended in their sick- 
ness. But I shall say more of this in its jDlace. 

I was, indeed, shocked with this sight ; it almost over- 
whelmed me ; and I went away with my heart most afflicted, 
and full of afflicting thoughts, such as I cannot describe ; 
just at my going out of the church, and turning up the 
street towards my own house, I saw anothei: cart, with 
links ^ and a bellman going before, coming out of Harrow 
Alley, in the Butcher Eow, on the other side of the way, 
and being, as I perceived, very full of dead bodies, it went 
directly over the street also towards the church. I stood 
awhile, but I had no stomach to go back again to see the 
same dismal scene over again ; so I went directly home, 
where I could not but consider with thankfulness, the risk 
I had run, believing I had gotten no injury ; as, indeed, I 
had not. 

Here the poor unhappy gentleman^s grief came into my 
head again, and, indeed, I could not but shed tears in the 
reflection upon it, perhaps more than he did himself ; but 
his case lay so heavy upon my mind that I could not pre- 
vail with myself but that I must go out again into the 
street, and go to the Pye Tavern, resolving to inquire what 
became of him. 

It was by this time one o^clock in the morning, and yet 
the poor gentleman was there ; the truth was, the people 
of the house, knowing him, had entertained him,^ and kept 
him there all the night, notwithstanding the danger of 
being infected by him, though it appeared the man was 
perfectly sound himself. 

It is with regret that I take notice of this tavern. The 
^ Torches. ^ Received liim as a guest. 



64 



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people were civil, mannerly, and an obliging sort of folks 
enough, and had till this time kept their house open, and 
their trade going on, though not so very publicly as for- 
merly ; but there was a dreadful set of fellows that used 
their house, and who, in the middle of all this horror, met 
there every night, behaving with all the revelling and roar- 
ing extravagances as is usual for such people to do at other 
times, and, indeed, to such an offensive degree, that the 
very master and mistress of the house grew first ashamed, 
and then terrified, at them. 

They sat generally in a room next the street ; and, as 
they always kept late hours, so when the dead-cart came 
across the street end to go into Houndsditch, which was in 
view of the tavern windows, they would frequently open 
the windows, as soon as they heard the bell, and look out 
at them ; and, as they might often hear sad lamentations 
of people in the streets, or at their windows, as the carts 
went along, they would make their impudent mocks and 
jeers at them, especially if they heard the poor people call 
upon God to have mercy upon them, as many would do at 
those times, in their ordinary passing along the streets. 

These gentlemen, being something disturbed with the 
clutter 1 of bringing the poor gentleman into the house, as 
above, were first angry and very high with the master of 
the house, for suffering such a fellow, as they called him, 
to be brought out of the grave into their house ; but, be- 
ing answered, that the man was a neighbour, and that he 
was sound, but overwhelmed with the calamity of his 
family, and the like, they turned their anger into ridicul- 
ing the man and his sorrow for his wife and children ; 
taunting him with want of courage to leap into the great 
pit, and go to heaven, as they jeeringly expressed it, along 
with them ; adding some very profane, and even blasphe- 
mous expressions. 

They were at this vile work when I came back to the 
house, and, as far as I could see, though the man sat still, 
^ Confusion. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



65 



mute, and disconsolate, and their affronts could not divert 
his sorrow, yet he was both grieved and offended at their 
discourse. Upon this, I gently reproved them, being well 
enough acquainted with their characters, and not unknown 
in person to two of them. 

They immediately fell upon me with ill language and 
oaths ; asked me what I did out of my grave at such a 
time, when so many honester men were carried into the 
church-yard ; and why I was not at home saying my 
prayers, against ^ the dead-cart came for me ; and the like. 

I was, indeed, astonished at the impudence of the men, 
though not at all discomposed at their treatment of me ; 
however, I kept my temper. I told them, that, though I 
defied them, or any man in the world, to tax me with any 
dishonesty, yet I acknowledged, that, in this terrible 
judgment of God, many better than I were swept away, and 
carried to their grave ; but, to answer their question di- 
rectly, the case was, that I was mercifully preserved by 
that great God whose name they had blasphemed and 
taken in vain, by cursing and swearing in a dreadful man- 
ner ; and that I believed I was preserved in particular, 
among other ends of his goodness, that I might reprove 
them for their audacious boldness, in behaving in such a 
manner, and in such an awful time as this was, especially 
for their jeering and mocking at an honest gentleman, and 
a neighbour, for some of them knew him, who they saw 
was overwhelmed with sorrow, for the breaches which it 
had pleased God to make upon his family. 

I cannot call exactly to mind the hellish, abominable 
raillery, which was the return they made to that talk of 
mine, being provoked, it seems, that I was not at all afraid 
to be free with them ; nor, if I could remember, would I 
fill my account with any of the words, the horrid oaths, 
curses, and vile expressions, such as, at that time of the 
day, even the worst and ordinariest people in the street 
would not use ; for, except such hardened creatures as 

1 In readiness for the coming of the dead cart. 
5 



66 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



these, the most wicked wretches that could be found, had 
at that time some terror upon their mind, of the hand of 
that Power which could thus in a moment destroy them. 

But that which was the worst in all their devilish lan- 
guage was that they were not afraid to blaspheme G-od, and 
talk atheistically ; making a jest at my calling the plague 
the hand of God, mocking, and even laughing at the word 
judgment, as if the providence of God had no concern in 
the inflicting such a desolating stroke ; and that the peo- 
ple calling upon God, as they saw the carts carrying away 
the dead bodies, was all enthusiastic,^ absurd, and imperti- 
nent. 

I made them some reply, such as I thought proper, but 
which I found was so far from putting a check to their 
horrid way of speaking, that it made them rail the more ; 
so that I confess it filled me with horror and a kind of rage, 
and I came away, as I told them, lest the hand of tliat 
judgment which had visited the whole city should glorify 
his vengeance upon them,^ and all that Avere near them. 

They received all reproof with the utmost contempt, and 
made the greatest mockery that was possible for them to 
do. at me, giving me all the opprobrious, insolent scoffs 
that they could think of for preaching to them, as they 
called it, which, indeed, grieved me, rather than angered 
me ; and I went away blessing God, however, in my mind, 
that I had not spared them, though they had insulted me 
so much. 

They continued this wretched course three or four days 
after this, continually mocking and jeering at all that 
showed themselves religious, or serious, or that were any 
way touched with the sense of the terrible judgment of 
God upon us, and I was informed they flouted in the same 
manner at the good people, who, notwithstanding the 
contagion, met at the church, fasted, and prayed to God 
to remove his hand from them. 

I say, they continued this dreadful course three or four 
' Extravagant - Should take a glorious vengeance on tliem. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



67 



days, I think it was no more, when one of them, particu- 
larly he who asked the poor gentleman what he did out of 
his grave, was struck from heaven with the plague, and 
died in a most deplorable manner ; and, in a word, they 
were every one of them carried into the great pit, which I 
have mentioned above, before it was quite filled up, which 
was not above a fortnight, or thereabout. 

These men were guilty of many extravagances, such as 
one would think human nature should have trembled at 
the thoughts of, at such a time of general terror as was 
then upon us ; and, particularly, scoffing and mocking at 
everything which they happened to see that was religious 
among the people, especially at their thronging zealously 
to the place of public worship, to implore mercy from 
heaven in such a time of distress ; and this tavern where 
they held their club being within view of the church door, 
they had the more particular occasion for their atheistical, 
profane mirth. 

But this began to abate a little with them before the ac- 
cident, which I have related, happened ; for the infection 
increased so violently at this part of the town now, that 
people began to be afraid to come to the church ; at least 
such numbers did not resort thither as was usual ; many of 
the clergymen likewise were dead, and others gone into the 
country ; for it really required a steady courage and a 
strong faith for a man not only to venture being in town 
at such a time as this, but likewise to venture to come to 
church and perform the office of a minister to a congrega- 
tion, of whom he had reason to believe many of them were 
actually infected with the plague, and to do this every day, 
or twice a day, as in some places was done. 

It seems they had been checked for their open insulting ^ 
religion in this manner, by several good people of every 
persuasion, and that ^ and the violent raging of the infec- 
tion, I suppose, was the occasion that they had abated 
much of their rudeness for some time before, and were 
' Insulting of. ^ ^he fact that they had been checked. 



.68 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



only roused by the spirit of ribaldry and atheism at the 
clamour which was made, when the gentleman was first 
brought in there, and, perhaps, were agitated by the same 
devil, ^ when I took upon me to reprove them ; though I 
did it at first with all the calmness, temper, and good man- 
ners that I could, which, for awhile, they insulted me the 
more for, thinking it had been in fear of their resentment, 
though afterwards they found the contrary. 

These things lay upon my mind ; and I went home very 
much grieved and oppressed with the horror of these men's 
wickedness, and to think that anything could be so vile, 
so hardened, and so notoriously wicked, as to insult God 
and his servants, and his worship, in such a manner, and 
at such a time as this was ; when he had, as it were, his 
sword drawn in his hand, on purpose to take vengeance, 
not on them only, but on the whole nation. 

I had, indeed, been in some passion, at first, with them, 
though it was really raised, not by any affront they had of- 
fered me personally, but by the horror their blaspheming 
tongues filled me with ; however, I was doubtful in my 
thoughts whether the resentment I retained was not all 
upon my own private account, for they had given me a 
great deal of ill language, too, I mean personally ; but 
after some pause, and having a weight of grief upon my 
mind, I retired myself,^ as soon as I came home, for I slept 
not that night, and giving God most humble thanks for 
my preservation in the imminent danger I had been in, I 
set my mind seriously, and with the utmost earnestness, to 
pray for those desperate wretches, that God would pardon 
them, open their eyes, and effectually humble them. 

By this I not only did my duty, namely to pray for 
those who despitef ully used me,^ but I fully tried ^ my own 
heart, to my full satisfaction, that ^ it was not filled with 
any spirit of resentment as ^ they had offended me in par- 

1 The spirit of ribaldry and atheism, referred to above. 

2 The idiom of to-day omits " myself." ^ St. Matthew v. 44. 
4 Examined. ^ To convince myself that. Inasmuch as. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



69 



ticular ; and I humbly recommend the method to all those 
that would know or be certain, how to distinguish between 
their zeal for the honour of God, and the effects of their 
private passions and resentment. 

I remember a citizen, who, having broken out of his 
house in Aldersgate Street, or thereabout, went along the 
road to Islington ; he attempted to have gone ^ in at the 
Angel Inn, and after that at the White Horse, two inns, 
known still by the same signs,^ but was refused ; after 
which he came to the Pyed Bull,^ an inn also still continu- 
ing the same sign ; he asked them for lodging for one night 
only, pretending to be going into Lincolnshire, and assuring 
them of his being very sound, and free from the infection, 
which also, at that time, had not reached much that way. 

They told him they had no lodging that they could spare, 
but one bed up in the garret, and that they could spare 
that bed but for one night, some drovers being expected 
the next day with cattle ; so, if he would accept of that 
lodging, he might have it, which he did ; so a servant 
was sent up witli a candle with him, to show him the 
room. He was very well dressed, and looked like a person 
not used to lie in a garret, and when he came to the room 
he fetched a deep sigh, and said to the servant, "1 have 
seldom lain in such a lodging as this ; " however, the ser- 
vant assured him again that they had no better : " Well," 
says he, " I must make shift ; this is a dreadful time ; but 
it is but for one night ; " so he sat down upon the bed-side, 
and bade the maid, I think it was, fetch him a pint of 
warm ale ; accordingly the servant went for the ale, but 
some hurry in the house, which, perhaps, employed her 
otherways, put it out of her head, and she went up no 
more to him. 

' To go. 

Signs bearing representations of an angel and a white horse, of 
course, and not merely printed words, which the ignorant could not 
read. ^-The Spotted Bull. 



TO 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



The next morning, seeing no a^Dpearance of the gentle- 
man, somebody in the house asked the servant that had 
showed him up stairs, what was become of him. She start- 
ed ; ''Alas/' says she, ''I never thought more of him : he 
bade me carry him some Avarm ale, but I forgot ; " upon 
which, not the maid, but some other person was sent up to 
see after him, who, coming into the room, found him stark 
dead, and almost cold, stretched out across the bed ; his 
clothes Avere pulled off, his jaw fallen, his eyes ojoen in a 
most frightful posture, the rug of the bed being grasped 
hard in one of his hands, so that it was plain he died soon 
after the maid left him, and it is probable, had she 
gone up with the ale, she had found him dead in a few 
minutes after he had sat down upon the bed. The alarm 
was great in the house, as any one may suppose, they hav- 
ing been free from the distemper till that disaster, which, 
bringing the infection to the house, spread it immediately 
to other houses round about it. I do not remember how 
many died in the house itself, but I think the maid-servant, 
who went up first with him, fell presently ill by the fright, 
and several others ; for, whereas, there died but two in Is- 
lington of the plague, the week before, there died nineteen 
the week after, whereof fourteen were of the plague ; this 
was in the week from the 11th of July to the 18th. 

There was one shift ^ that some families had, and that 
not a few, when their houses happened to be infected, and 
that was this ; the families, who, in the first breaking out 
of the distemper, fled away into the country and had re- 
treats among their friends, generally found some or other 
of their neighbours or relations to commit the charge of 
those houses to, for the safety of the goods, and the like. 
Some houses were, indeed, entirely locked up, the doors 
padlocked, the windows and doors having deal boards nail- 
ed over them, and only ^ the inspection of them committed 

' Device. 

2 The inspection of them committed only to tlie ordinary watelmien, 
etc. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



71 



to the ordinary watchmen and parish officers^ but these ^ 
were but few. 

It was thought^ that there were not less than a thousand 
houses forsaken of the inhabitants, in the city and suburbs, 
including what was in the out-parishes, and in Surrey, or 
the side of the water they called Sonthwark. This was 
besides the numbers of lodgers and of particular persons ^ 
who were fled out of other families, so that in all it was 
computed that about two hundred thousand people were 
fled and gone in all.^ But of this I shall speak again ; but"* 
I mention it here on this account, namely, that it was a 
rule with those, who had thus two houses in their keeping 
or care, that if anybody was taken sick in the family, 
before the master of the family let the examiners or any 
other officer know of it, he immediately would send all the 
rest of his family, whether children or servants, as it fell 
out to be, to such other house which^ he had not^ in charge, 
and then giving notice of the sick person to the examiner, 
have a nurse or nurses appointed, and, having another per- 
son to be shut up in the house with them (which many for 
money would do), so to take charge of the house, in case 
the person should die. 

This was in many cases the saving ^ a whole family, who, 
if they had been shut up with the sick person, would in- 
evitably have perished ; but, on the other hand, this was 
another of the inconveniences of shutting up houses ; for the 
apprehensions and terror of being shut up made many run 
away with the rest of the family, who,^ though it was not 
publicly known, and they were not quite sick, had yet the 

' These houses. ^ "Particular persons," individuals. 

" "In all," an unnecessary addition. 
Here the author changes abruptly his line of thought, and goes 
hack to the subject introduced by the first sentence in the preceding 
paragraph, that of houses deserted by their owners and left in charge 
of other persons. 

^To such other house as. 

®The sense seems to require that " not" should be omitted. 
Tlie saving of. ^ Made many run away, who. 



JOUUNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



distemper upon them ; and who, by havmg an uninterrupted 
liberty to go about, but being obliged still to conceal their 
circumstances, or, perhaps, not knowing it themselves, 
gave the distemper to others, and spread the infection in a 
dreadful manner, as I shall explain farther hereafter. 

I had in my family only an ancient woman, that man- 
aged the house, a maid-servant, two a^oprentices, and my- 
self, and the plague beginning to increase about us, I had 
many sad thoughts about what course I should take, and- 
how I should act ; the many dismal objects ^ which hap- 
pened everywhere, as I went about the streets, had filled 
my mind with a great deal of horror, for fear of the dis- 
temper itself, which was, indeed, very horrible in itself, 
and in some more than others ; the swellings, which were 
generally in the neck or groin, when they grew hard, and 
would not break, grew so painful that it was equal to the 
most exquisite torture ; and some, not able to bear the tor- 
ment; threw themselves out at windows, or shot them- 
selves, or otherwise made themselves away,^ and I saw 
several dismal objects of that kind : others, unable to con- 
tain themselves, vented their j)ain by incessant roarings, 
and such loud and lamentable cries were to be heard, as we 
walked along the streets, that ^ would pierce the very heart 
to think of, especially when it was to be considered that 
the same dreadful scourge might be expected every moment 
to seize upon ourselves. 

I cannot say but that now I began to faint in my reso- 
lutions ; my heart failed me very much, and sorely I re- 
pented of my rashness, when I had been out, and met with 
such terrible things as these I have talked of ; I say, I re- 
pented my rashness in venturing to abide in town, and I 
wished, often, that I had not taken upon me to stay, but 
had gone awa}^ witli my brother and his family. 

1 "Events or circumstances, wliicli happened everywhere," or else, 
"objects which I saw everywhere, ' would make better sense. 
^Made away with themselves. -'As. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



73 



Terrified by those frightful objects^ I would retire home 
sometimes^ and resolve to go out no more, and perhaps I 
would keep those resolutions for three or four days, which 
time I spent in the most serious thankfulness for my pres- 
ervation, and the preservation of my family, and the con- 
stant confession of my sins, giving myself up to God every 
day, and applying to him with fasting and humiliation 
and meditation. Such intervals as I had, I employed in 
reading books, and in writing down my memorandums 
of what occurred to me every day, and out of which, 
afterwards, I took most of this work, as it relates to my 
observations without doors ; what I wrote of my private 
meditations I reserve for private use, and desire it may not 
be made public on any account whatever. 

I also wrote other meditations upon divine ^ subjects, 
such as occurred to me at that time, and were profitable to 
myself, but not fit for any other view, and therefore I say 
no more of that. 

I had a very good friend, a physician, whose name was 
Heath, whom I frequently visited during this dismal time, 
and to whose advice I was very much obliged for many 
things which he directed me to take by way of preventing 
the infection when I went out, as he found I frequently 
did, and to hold in my mouth, when I was in the streets ; 
he also came very often to see me, and as he was a good 
Christian, as well as a good physician, his agreeable con- 
versation was a very great support to me, in the worst of 
this terrible time. 

It was now the beginning of August, and the plague 
grew very violent and terrible in the place where I lived, 
and Dr. Heath, coming to visit me and finding that I vent- 
ured so often out in the streets, earnestly persuaded me to 
lock myself up, and my family, and not to suffer any of us 
to go out of doors ; to keep all our Avindowsfast, shutters and 
curtains close, and never to open them, but first to make - 
a very strong smoke in tlio room, where tlu^ window or door 
' Sacred. 2 Never to open them without first making, etc. 



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was to be opened, with rosin and pitch, brimstone and 
gunpowder, and the like, and we did this for some time, 
but as I had not laid in a store of provision for such a re- 
treat, it was impossible that we could keep within doors 
entirely ; however, I attempted, though it was so very 
late, to do something towards it ; and first, as I had con- 
venience both for brewing and baking, I went and bought 
two sacks of meal, and for several weeks, having an oven, 
we baked all our own bread ; also I bought malt, and 
brewed as much beer as all the casks I had would hold, and 
which seemed enough to serve my house for five or six 
weeks ; also, I laid in a quantity of salt butter and Chesh- 
ire cheese ; but I had no flesh ^ meat, and the plague 
raged so violently among the butchers and slaughter- 
houses, on the other side of our street, where they are 
known to dwell in great numbers, that it was not advisa- 
ble so much as to go over the street among them. 

And here I must observe again that this necessity of go- 
ing out of our houses to buy provisions, was in a great 
measure the ruin of the whole city, for the people catched 
the distemper, on these occasions, one of another, and 
even the provisions themselves were often tainted, at least 
I have great reason to believe so ; and, therefore, I cannot 
say with satisfaction, what I know is repeated with great 
assurance, that the market people, and such as brought 
provisions to town, were never infected. I am certain the 
butchers of Whitechapel, where the greatest part of the 
flesh meat was killed, were dreadfully visited, and that at 
last to such a degree that few of their shops were kept open, 
and those that remained of them killed their meat at Mile 
End, and that way,^ and brought it to market upon horses. 

However, the poor people could not lay up provisions, 
and there was a necessity that they must go to market to 
buy, and others to send servants, or their cliildren ; and, 
as this was a necessity which renewed itself daily, it brought 

' Flesli meat is the llesli of Leasts, as distiugnislied from that of 
fish. - In that vicinity. 



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75 



abundance of unsound people to the markets, and a great 
many that went thither sound, brought death home with 
them. 

It is true, people used all possible precaution ; when any 
one bought a joint of meat in the market, they ^ would not 
take it out of the butcher^s hand, but took it off the hooks 
themselves. On the other hand, the butcher would not 
touch the money, but have it put into a pot full of vinegar, 
which he kept for that purpose. The buyer carried al- 
ways small money to make up any odd sum, that they 
might take no change. They carried bottles for scents and 
perfumes in their hands, and all the means that could be 
used were employed ; but then the poor could not do even 
these things, and they went at all hazards.^ 

Innumerable dismal stories we heard every day on this 
very account. Sometimes a man or woman dropt down 
dead in the very markets ; for many people that had the 
plague upon them knew nothing of it till the inward gan- 
grene had affected their vitals, and they died in a few 
moments ; this caused^* that many died frequently in that 
manner in the street suddenly, without any warning ; 
others, perhaps, had time to go to the next bulk or stall,'^ 
or to any door or porch, and just sit down and die, as I 
have said before. 

These objects were so frequent in the streets, that, 
when the plague came to be very raging on one side,^ there 
was scarce any passing by the streets, but that ^ several 
dead bodies would be lying here and there upon the ground ; 
on the other hand, it is observable, that though, at first, 
the people would stop as they went along, and call to the 

I He. The syntax of the sentence is confused. 

^ Either, " went {i.e., to market) at all hazards," or, " went at {i.e., 
ran) all hazards (risks)." 

^ Frequently caused the death of many. 
Open booth, in front of a shop. " Bulk " scarcely differed in 
meaning from "stall." 

^ Of the city. " But that " is here equivalent to " without." 



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neighbours to come out on such an occasion, yet, after- 
ward, no notice was taken of them ; but that,^ if at any 
time we found a corpse lying, go ^ across the way and not 
come near it ; or if in a narrow lane or passage, go back 
again, and seek some other way to go on the business we 
were upon ; and, in those cases, the corpse was always left 
till the officers had notice to come and take them ^ away ; 
or till night, when the bearers attending the dead-cart 
would take them up and carry them away. Nor did those 
undaunted creatures who performed these offices fail to 
search their pockets, and sometimes strip off their clothes 
if they were well dressed, as sometimes they were, and 
carry off what they could get. 

But, to return to the markets ; the butchers took that 
care, that, if any person died in the market, they had the 
officers always at hand, to take them up upon hand-barrows, 
and carry them to the next ^ churchyard ; and this was so 
frequent, that such were not entered in the weekly bill, 
found 5 dead in the streets or fields, as is the case now, but 
they went into the general articles ^ of the great distemper. 

But now the fury of the distemper increased to such a 
degree, that even the markets were but very thinly fur- 
nished with provisions, or frequented with buyers, com- 
pared to what they were before ; and the lord mayor caused 
the country people who brought provisions, to be stopped 
in the streets leading into the town, and to sit down there 
with their goods, where they sold what they brought, and 
went immediately away ; and this encouraged the country 
people greatly to do so, for they sold their provisions at 
the very entrances into the town, and even in the fields ; 
as, particularly, in the fields beyond Whitechapel, in Spital- 
fields. Xote,^ those streets, now called Spitalfields, were 

1 But (it is observable) that. - We would go. ^ It. ^ Nearest. 
^ Entered in the weekly bill as found, etc.," or, " entered in the 
weekly bill, ' Found dead, etc' '' 

Under tlie general headings or divisions of the bill. 
^ Note that. 



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77 



then, indeed, open fields : also, in St. George's Fields, in 
South wark ; in Bunhill Fields, and in a great field, called 
Woods's Close, near Islington ; thither the lord mayor, 
aldermen, and magistrates, sent their officers and servants 
to buy for their families, themselves keeping within doors 
as much as possible, and the like did many other people ; 
and after this method was taken, the country people came 
with great cheerfulness, and brought provisions of all sorts, 
and very seldom got any harm ; which I suppose added 
also to that report of their being miraculously preserved. 

As for my little family, having thus, as I have said, laid 
in a store of bread, butter, cheese, and beer, I took my 
friend and physician's advice,^ and locked 'myself up, and 
my family, and resolved to suifer the hardship of living a 
few months without flesh meat, rather than to purchase it 
at the hazard of our lives. 

But, though I confined my family, I could not prevail 
upon my unsatisfied curiosity to stay within entirely my- 
self ; and, though I generally came frighted and terrified 
home, yet I could not restrain ; only,^ that indeed I did 
not do it so frequently as at first. 

I had some little obligations indeed upon me, to go to 
my brother's house, which was in Coleman Street parish, 
and which he had left to my care ; and I went at first every 
day, but afterwards only once or twice a week. 

In these walks I had many dismal scenes before my eyes ; 
as, particularly, of persons falling dead in the streets, ter- 
rible shrieks and screechings of women, who, in their ago- 
nies, would throw open their chamber windows, and cry 
out in a dismal surprising manner. It is impossible to 
describe the variety of postures in which the passions of the 
poor people would express themselves. 

Passing through Token House Yard, in Lothbury, of a 
sudden a casement violently opened just over my head, and 
a woman gave three frightful screeches, and then cried, 
" Oil ! death, death, death ! " in a most inimitable tone, 

' The advice of my friend and pliysician. Except. 



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and which ^ struck me with horror, and a chilness in my 
ver}' blood. There was nobody to be seen in the whole 
street, neither did any other window open, for people had 
no curiosity now in any case, nor could anybody help one 
another ; so I went on to pass into Bell Alley. 

Just in Bell Alley, on the right hand of the passage, 
there was a more terrible cry than that, though it was not 
so directed out at the window, but the whole family was in 
a terrible fright, and I could hear women and children run 
screaming about the rooms like distracted, when a garret 
window opened, and somebody from a window on the other 
side the alley called and asked, What is the matter ? " 
Upon which, from the first window, it was answered, " 0 
Lord, my old master has hanged himself I The other 
asked again, Is he quite dead ? and the first answered, 
" Ay, Qij, quite dead : quite dead and cold I " This person 
was a merchant, and a deputy alderman, and very rich. I 
care not to mention his name, though I knew his name, 
too : but that would be a hardship to the family, which is 
now flourishing again. 

But this is but one. It is scarce credible what dreadful 
cases hapjSened in particular ^ families every day ; jDeople, 
in the rage of the distemper, or in the torment of their 
swellings, which was indeed intolerable, running out of 
their own government,^ raving and distracted, and often- 
times laying violent hands upon themselves, throwing 
themselves out at^ their windows, shooting themselves, 
etc. Mothers murdering their own children, in their luna- 
cy ; some dying of mere grief, as a passion ; ^ some of mere 
fright and surprise, without any infection at all ; others 
frighted ^ into idiotism and foolish distractions ; ^ some 
into despair and lunacy ; others into melancholy ^ madness.^" 

1 In a tone which was most inimitable, and which, etc. 
''Individual. ^ Losing control of themselves. •'Of. 

^ As, for instance, of a passion. 'Frightened. "Idiocy. 
"Affections of the mind. The madness of melancholia. 

This sentence has no finite verb in it, and should strictly be re- 
garded as a series of clauses forming a part of the preceding sentence. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



79 



The pain of the swelling was in particnlar very violent, 
and to some intolerable ; the physicians and snrgeons may 
be said to have tortnred many poor creatures even to death. 
The swellings in some grew hard, and they applied violent 
drawing plasters, or poultices, to break them ; and if these 
did not do, they cut and scarified them ^ in a terrible man- 
ner. In some, those swellings were made hard, partly by 
the force of the distemper, and partly by their being too 
violently drawn, and were so hard, that no instrument 
could cut them, and then they burnt them with caustics, 
so that many died raving mad with the torment, and some 
in the very operation. In these distresses, some, for want 
of help to hold them down in their beds, or to look to 
them, laid hands upon themselves, as above ; some broke 
out into the streets, perhaps naked, and would run di- 
rectly down to the river, if they were not stopped by the 
Avatchmen, or other officers, and plunge themselves into 
the water, wherever they found it. 

It often pierced my very soul to hear the groans and 
cries of those who were thus tormented : but of the two 
this ^ was counted the most promising particular in the 
whole infection ; for, if these swellings could be brought 
to a head, and to break and run, or, as the surgeons call it, 
to digest, the patient generally recovered ; whereas, those 
who, like the gentlewoman's daughter,^ were struck with 
death at the beginning, and had the tokens come out upon 
them, often went about indifferently easy, till a little be- 
fore they died, and some till the moment they dropt down, 
as in apoplexies and epilepsies is often the case. Such 
would be taken suddenly very sick, and would run to a 
bench or bulk, or any convenient place that offered itself, 
or to their own houses, if possible, as I mentioned before, 
and there sit down, grow faint, and die. This kind of dy- 
ing was much the same as it was with those who die of 
common mortifications,^ who die swooning, and, as it were, 

1 Tlie s\velliiigs. '-^ The swellings. See page 55. 

Cases ill which the flesh inoitilles. 



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go away in a dream ; such as died thus had very little no- 
tice of their being infected at all^ till the gangrene was 
spread through their whole body ; nor could physicians 
themselves knoAV certainly how it was with them^ till they 
opened ^ their breasts, or other parts of their body, and saw 
the tokens. 

We had at this time a great many frightful stories told 
us of nurses and watchmen, who looked after the dying 
people, that is to say, hired nurses, who attended infected 
people, using them barbarously, starving them, smothering 
them, or, by other wicked means, hastening their end ; 
that is to say, murdering of them. And watchmen being 
set to guard houses that were shut up, when there has been 
but one person left, and perhaps that one lying sick, that 
they have broke in and murdered that body, and immedi- 
ately thrown them ^ out into the dead -cart ; and so they 
have gone scarce cold to the grave. 

I cannot say but that some such murders were com- 
mitted, and I think two were sent to prison for it, but died 
before they could be tried ; and I have heard that three 
others, at several times, were executed for murders of that 
kind. But, I must say, I believe nothing of its being so 
common a crime as some have since been pleased to say ; 
nor did it seem to be so rational, where the people were 
brought so low as not to be able to help themselves, for 
such seldom recovered, and there was no temptation to 
commit a murder ; at least, not equal to the fact,^ where 
they were sure persons would die in so short a time, and 
could not live. 

That there were a great many robberies and wicked prac- 
tices committed even in this dreadful time, I do not deny ; 
the power of avarice was so strong in some, that they 
would run any hazard to steal and to plunder ; and, par- 
ticularly, in liouses where all the families or inhabitants 

' Examined. " And we have heard stories of watchmen. ^ It. 
' The temptation was not so strong as to blind the wonld-be mur- 
derers to the plain fact now mentioned. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



81 



have been dead and carried out, they would break in at all 
hazards^ and^ without regard to the danger of infection, 
take even the clothes off the dead bodies, and the bed 
clothes from others, where they lay dead. 

This, I suppose, must be the case of a family in Hounds- 
ditch, where a man and his daughter, the rest of the family 
being, as I suppose, carried away before by the dead-cart, 
were found stark naked, one in one chamber, and one in 
another, lying dead on the floor, and the clothes of the 
beds, from whence it is supposed they were rolled off, by 
thieves, stolen, and carried quite away. 

It is, indeed, to be observed, that the women were, in all 
this calamity, the most rash, fearless, and desperate creat- 
ures ; and, as there were vast numbers that went about 
as nurses, to tend those that were sick, they committed a 
great many petty thieveries in the houses where they were 
employed ; and some of them were publicly whipt for it, 
when, perhaps, they ought rather to have been hanged ^ 
for examples, for numbers of houses were robbed on these 
occasions ; till, at length, the parish officers were sent to 
recommend nurses to the sick, and always took an account 
who ^ it was they sent, so as that ^ they might call them 
to account, if the house had been abused where they were 
placed. 

But these robberies extended chiefly to wearing clothes, 
linen, and what rings or money they could come at, when 
the person died who was under their care, but not to a 
general plunder of the houses ; and I could give you an 
account of one of these nurses, who, several years after, be- 
ing on her death-bed, confessed, with the utmost horror, 
the robberies she had committed at the time of her being 
a nurse, and by which she had enriched herself to a great 
degree ; but as for murders, I do not find that there was ^ 
ever any proofs of the fact, in the manner as^ it has been 
reported, except as above. 

^ Hanging was then a common pnnishment for even petty thefts. 
■■^ Of whom. ^Sotliat. ^ \Vere. ^ In which. 

6 



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They did tell me^ indeed, of a nurse in one place, that 
laid a wet cloth upon the face of a dying patient whom she 
tended, and so put an end to his life, who was just expir- 
ing before ; and another that smothered a young woman 
she was looking to, when she was in a fainting fit, and 
would have come to herself ; some that killed them by 
giving them one thing, some another, and some starved 
them by giving them nothing at all. But these stories 
had two marks of suspicion that always attended them, 
which caused me always to slight them, and to look on 
them as mere stories, that people continually frighted one 
another with. (1.) That, wherever it was that we heard 
it, they always placed the scene at the farther end of the 
town, opposite, or most remote from where, you were to 
hear it. If you heard it in Whitechapel, it had happened 
at St. Guess's, or at Westminster, or Holborn, or that end 
of the town ; if you heard it at that end of the town, then 
it was done in Whitechapel, or the Minories, or about 
Cripplegate parish ; if you heard of it in the city, why 
then, it happened in South wark ; and if you heard of it in 
South wark, then it was done in the city, and the like. 

In the next place, of whatsoever part^ you heard the 
story, the particulars were always the same, especially that 
of laying a wet double clout ^ on a dying man's face, and 
that of smothering a young gentlewoman ; so that it was 
apparent, at least to my judgment, that there was more of 
tale than of truth in those things.^ 

A neighbour and acquaintance of mine, having some 
money owing to him from a shopkeeper in AYhitecross 
Street, or thereabouts, sent his apprentice, a youth about 
eighteen years of age, to endeavour to get the money. He 
came to the door, and finding it shut, knocked pretty hard, 
and, as he thought, heard somebody answer within, but 
was not sure, so he waited, and after some stay, knocked 

1 Of the city. ^cioth. 

2 By 110 means a necessary inference. 



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83 



again^ and then a third time^, when he heard somebody 
coming down stairs. 

At length the man of the house came to the door ; he 
had on his breeches^ or drawers^ and a yellow flannel waist- 
coat^ no stockings, a pair of slip shoes/ a white cap on his 
head, and, as the young man said, death in his face. 

When he opened the door, says he, ^MVhat do you dis- 
turb me thus for ? " The boy, though a little surprised, 
replied, "1 come from such a one, and my master sent me 
for the money which he says you know of.^" Very well, 
child, returns the living ghost, '''call, as you go by, at 
Cripplegate church, and bid them ring the bell ; " and, 
with these words, shut the door again, and went up again 
and died the same day, nay, perhaps the same hour. This 
the young man told me himself, and I have reason to be- 
lieve it. This was while the plague was not come to a 
height ; I think it was in June, towards the latter end of 
the month ; it must have been before the dead-carts came 
about, and while they used the ceremony of ringing the 
bell for the dead, which was over for certain in that parish, 
at least, before the month of July ; for, by the 25 th of 
July, there died five hundred and fifty and upwards in a 
week, and then they could no more bury, in form,^ rich or 
poor. 

I have mentioned above, that, notwithstanding this dread- 
ful calamity, yet that^ numbers of thieves were abroad upon 
all occasions where they had found any prey ; and that 
these were generally women. It was one morning about 
eleven o'clock, I had walked out to my brother's house in 
Coleman Street parish, as I often did, to see that all was 
safe. 

My brother's house had a little court before it, and a 
brick wall and a gate in it ; and, witiiin that, several ware- 
houses, where his goods of several sorts lay. It liappened 
that in one of these warehouses were several packs of 

•Slippers. With the proper rites. ^Yet. 



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women's higli-crowned hats, which came out of the conntr}', 
and were, as I suppose, for exportation ; whither I know 
not. 

I was surprised, that when I came near my brother's 
door, which was in a place they called Swan iilley, I met 
three or four women with high-crowned hats on their 
heads, and, as I remembered afterwards, one, if not more, 
had some hats likewise in their hands ; but as I did not see 
them come out at my brother's door, and not knowing that 
my brother had any such goods in his warehouse, I did not 
offer to say anything to them, but went across the way to 
shun meeting them, as was usual to do at that time, for 
fear of the 23lague ; but, when I came nearer to the gate I 
met another woman, with more hats, come out of the gate. 
" AYhat business, mistress," said I, '^lave you had there 
" There are more people there," said she ; I have had no 
more business there than they." I was hasty to get to the 
gate then, and said no more to her ; by which means she 
got away. But, just as I came to the gate, I saw two more 
coming across the yard, to come out, with hats also on 
their heads, and under their arms ; at which I threw the 
gate too ^ behind me, which, having a spring-lock, fastened 
itself; and, turning to the woman, Forsooth," said I, 
^' what are you doing here ? " and seized upon the hats, 
and took them from them. One of them, who, I confess, 
did not look like a thief, " Indeed," says she, " we are 
wrong ; but we were told they were goods that had no 
owner ; be pleased to take them again, and look yonder, 
there are more such customers as we." She cried, and 
looked pitifully ; so I took the hats from her, and opened 
the gate, and bade them begone ; for I pitied the women 
indeed : but when I looked towards the warehouse, as she 
directed, there were six or seven more, all women, fitting 
themselves with hats, as unconcerned and quiet as if they 
had been at a hatters shop, buying for their money. 

I was surprised, not at tlio sight of so many thieves only. 



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85 



but at tlie circumstances I was in ; being now to thrust 
myself in among so many people, who/ for some weeks, I 
had been so shy of myself, that if I met anybody in the 
street, I would cross the way from them. 

They were equally surprised, though on another account. 
They all told me they were neighbours, that they had 
heard any one might take them, that they were nobody^s 
goods, and the like. I talked big to them at first, went 
back to the gate, and took out the key, so that they were 
all my prisoners ; threatened to lock them all into the 
warehouse, and go and fetch my lord mayor's officers for 
them. 

They begged heartily, protested they found the gate 
open, and the warehouse door open, and that it had no 
doubt been broken open by some who expected to find 
goods of greater value ; which, indeed, was reasonable to 
believe, because the lock was broke, and a padlock that 
hung to the door on the outside also loose, and not abun- 
dance of the hats carried away. 

At length I considered that this was not a time to be 
cruel and rigorous ; and besides that it would necessarily 
oblige me to go much about, to have several people come 
to me, and I go to several, whose circumstances of health I 
knew nothing of ; and that, even at this time, the plague 
was so high as that there died four thousand a week ; so that, 
in showing my resentment, or even in seeking justice for my 
brother's goods, I might lose my own life ; so I contented 
myself with taking the names and places where some of 
them lived, who were really inhabitants in the neighbour- 
hood, and threatening that my brother should call them to 
an account for it when he returned to his habitation. 

Then I talked a little upon another footing with them ; 
and asked them how they could do such things as these, in 
a time of such general calamity, and, as it were, in the 
face of God's most dreadful judgments, when the plague 
was at their very doors, and, it may be, in tlieir very 

' Whom, — referring, of course, to people in general. 



86 



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houses ; and they did not know but that the dead-cart 
might stop at their doors in a few hours, to carry them to 
their graves. 

I could not perceive that my discourse made much im- 
pression upon them all that while, till it happened that 
there came two men of the neighbourhood, hearing of the 
disturbance, and knowing my brother (for they had been 
both dependents upon his family), and they came to my 
assistance. These being, as I said, neighbours, presently 
knew three of the women, and told me who they were, 
and where they lived ; and, it seems, they had given me a 
true account of themselves before. 

This brings these two men to a farther remembrance. 
The name of one was John Hay ward, who was at that time 
under-sexton of the parish of St. Stephen, Coleman Street ; 
by under-sexton was understood at that time grave-digger 
and bearer of the dead. This man carried, or assisted to 
carry, all the dead to their graves, which ^ were buried in 
that large parish, and who were carried in form ; '-^ and, 
after that form of burying was stopt, went with the dead- 
cart, and the bell, to fetch the dead bodies from the houses 
where they lay, and fetched many of them out of the 
chambers and houses ; for the parish was, and is, still 
remarkable, particularly, above all the parishes in London, 
for a great number of alleys and thoroughfares, very long, 
into which no carts could come, and where they were 
obliged to go and fetch the bodies a very long way, which 
alleys now remain to witness it ; such as Whitens Alley, 
Cross Keys Court, Swan Alley, Bell Alley, White Horse 
Alley, and many more. Here they went with a kind of 
handbarrow, and laid the dead bodies on, and carried them 
out to the carts ; which work he performed, and never had 
the distemper at all, but lived about twenty years after it, 
and was sexton of the parish to the time of his death. His 
wife at the same time was a nurse to infected people, and 
tended many that died in the parish, being for her honesty 

1 Who. ' Witli due rites. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



87 



recommended by the parish officers ; yet she never was in- 
fected neither. 1 

He never used any preservative against the infection 
other than holding garlic and rue in his mouth, and smok- 
ing tobacco ; this I also had from his own mouth ; and his 
wife's remedy was washing her head in vinegar, and sprink- 
ling her head-clothes so with vinegar as to keep them 
always moist ; and if the smell of any of those she waited 
on was more than ordinary ^ offensive, she snuffed vinegar 
up her nose, and sprinkled vinegar upon her head-clothes, 
and held a handkerchief wetted with vinegar to her 
mouth. 

It must be confessed, that, though the plague was chiefly 
among the poor, yet were the poor the most venturous ^ 
and fearless of it, and went about their employment with a 
sort of brutal courage. I must call it so, for it was 
founded neither on religion or prudence ; scarce did they 
use any caution, but ran into any business which they 
could get any employment in, though it was the most haz- 
ardous ; such was that of tending the sick, watching 
houses shut up, carrying infected persons to the pesthouse, 
and, which was still worse, carrying the dead away to their 
graves. 

It was under this John Hayward's care, and within his 
bounds,'* that the story of the piper, with which people 
have made themselves so merry, happened, and he assured 
me that it was true. It is said that it was a blind piper ; 
but, as John told me, the fellow was not blind, but an 
ignorant, weak, poor man, and usually went his rounds 
about ten o'clock at night, and went piping along from 
door to door, and the people usually took him in at public 
houses where they knew him, and would give him drink 
and victuals, and sometimes farthings ; and he in return 
would pipe and sing, and talk simply,^ which diverted the 
peoi)le, and thus he lived. It was but a very bad time for 

' Still a colloquial idiom of the illiterate. '-^ Ordinarily, 

y Venturesome. 'District. Foolislily. 



88 



JOUIINAL OF THE PLAQUE 



this diversio]!, while things were as I have told, yet the 
poor fellow went about as usual, but was almost starved ; 
and when anybody asked how he did, he would answer, the 
dead-cart had not taken him yet, but that they had prom- 
ised to call for him next week. 

It happened one night, that this poor fellow, whether 
somebody had given him too much drink or no (John Hay- 
ward said he had not drink in his house, but that they had 
given him a little more victuals than ordinary at a public- 
house in Coleman Street), and the poor fellow having not 
usually had a bellyful, or, perhaps, not ^ a good while, was 
laid all along upon the top of a bulk or stall, and fast 
asleep at a door, in the street near London Wall, towards 
Cripplegate, and that, upon the same bulk or stall, the 
people of some house, in the alley of which the house was a 
corner, hearing a bell, which they always rung before the 
cart came, had laid a body really dead of the plague just 
by him, thinking too that this poor fellow had been a dead 
body as the other was, and laid there by some of the neigh- 
bours. 

Accordingly, when John Hayward Avith his bell and the 
cart came along, finding two dead bodies lie ^ upon the 
stall, they took them up with the instrument they used, 
and threw them into the cart ; and all this while the piper 
slept soundly. 

From hence they passed along, and took in other dead 
bodies, till, as honest John Hayward told me, they almost 
buried him alive in the cart, yet all this while he slept 
soundly ; at length the cart came to the place where the 
bodies were to be thrown into the ground, which, as I do re- 
member, was at Mountmill ; and, as the cart usually stopt 
some time before they were ready to shoot out the melan- 
choly load they had in it, as soon as the cart stopped, the 
fellow awaked, and struggled a little to get his head out 
from among the dead bodies, when, raising himself up in 
the cart, he called out, Hey, where am I ? This 
1 Not for. 2 Lying. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



89 



frighted the fellow that attended about the work, but, 
after some pause, John Hayward, recovering himself, said. 

Lord bless us ! there^s somebody in the cart not quite 
dead ! " So another called to him, and said, " Who are 
you ? " The fellow answered, I am the poor piper. 
Where am 1?'^ 'M¥here are you ! says Hay ward ; 

why, you are in the dead-cart, and we are going to bury 
you/' " But I an't dead though, am I ? says the piper ; 
which made them laugh a little, though, as John said, 
they were heartily frightened at first ; so they helped the 
poor fellow down, and he went about his business. 

I know the story goes, he set up his pipes in the cart, 
and frighted the bearers and others, so that they ran away; 
but John Hayward did not tell the story so, nor say any- 
thing of his piping at all ; but that he was a poor piper, 
and that he was carried away as above, I am fully satisfied 
of the truth of. 

It is to be noted here, that the dead-carts in the city 
were not confined to particular parishes, but one cart went 
through several parishes, according as the number of dead 
presented ; nor were they tied ^ to carry the dead to their 
respective parishes, but many of the dead taken up in the 
city were carried to the burying ground in the out-parts 
for want of room. 

At the beginning of the plague, when there was now no 
more hope but that the whole city would be visited ; when, 
as I have said, all that had friends or estates in the coun- 
try retired with their families, and when, indeed, one 
would have thought the very city itself was running out of 
the gates, and that there would be nobody left behind, you 
may be sure, from that hour, all trade except such as re- 
lated to immediate subsistence, was, as it were, at a full 
stop. 

This is so lively a case, ^ and contains iu it so much of the 
real condition of the people, that I think I cannot be too 
• Bound. 2 So striking a circumstance. 



90 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



particular in it ; and, tlierefore, I descend to the several 
arrangements or classes of people wlio fell into immediate 
distress upon this occasion. For example, 

1. All master workmen in manufactures ; especially such 
as belonged to ornament, and the less necessary parts of 
the people's dress, clothes, and furniture for houses ; such 
as ribband weavers and other weavers, gold and silver lace 
makers, and gold and silver Avire drawers, sempstresses, 
milliners, shoemakers, hat-makers, and glove-makers ; also 
upholsterers, joiners, cabinet-makers, looking-glass-mak- 
ers, and innumerable trades which depend upon such as 
these. I say the master w^orkmen in such stopped their 
work, dismissed their journeymen and workmen, and all 
their dependents. 

2. As merchandizing was at a full stop (for very few 
ships ventured to come up the river, and none at all went 
out), so all the extraordinary officers of the customs, like- 
wise the watermen,^ carmen,^ porters, and all the ^Door whose 
labour depended upon the merchants, were at once dis- 
missed, and put out of business. 

3. All the tradesmen usually employed in building or re- 
pairing of houses were at a full stop, for the people were 
far from wanting to build houses, when so many thousand 
houses were at once stript of their inhabitants ; so that 
this one article ^ turned out all the ordinary workmen of 
that kind of business, such as bricklayers, masons, carpen- 
ters, joiners, plasterers, painters, glaziers, smiths, plumb- 
ers, and all the labourers depending on such. 

4. As navigation was at a stop, our ships neither coming 
in or going out as before, so the seamen were all out of em- 
ployment, and many of them in the last and lowest degree 
of distress ; and with the seamen were all the several 
tradesmen and workmen belonging to and depending upon 
the building and fitting out of &\\\\)?, ; such as ship-carpen- 



' Men plying boats on the river. -Carters, 
^ This particular part of the circumstances. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



91 



ters, calkers, rope-makers, dry coopers/ sail-makers, an- 
chor-smiths and other smiths ; block-makers, carvers,^ gun- 
smiths, ship-chandlers,^ ship-carvers,^ and the like. The 
masters of those, perhaps, might live upon their substance, 
but the traders were universally at a stop, and consequent- 
ly all their workmen discharged. Add to these, that the 
river was in a manner without boats, and all or most part 
of the watermen, lightermen,-^ boat-builders, and lighter- 
builders, in like manner idle, and laid by. 

5. All families retrenched their living as much as possi- 
ble, as well those that fled as those that stayed ; so that an 
innumerable multitude of footmen, serving men, shop- 
keepers, journeymen, merchants' book-keepers, and such 
sort of people, and especially poor maid-servants, were 
turned off, and left friendless and helpless without employ- 
ment and without habitation ; and this was really a dismal 
article. 

I might be more particular as to this part, but it may 
suffice to mention, in general, all trades being stopt, em- 
ployment ceased, the labour, and, by that, the bread of the 
poor, were cut off ; and at first, indeed, the cries of the 
poor were most lamentable to hear ; though, by the distri- 
bution of charity, their misery that way was gently ^ abated. 
Many, indeed, fled into the country ; but thousands of 
them having stayed in London, till nothing but despera- 
tion sent them away, death overtook them on the road, and 
they served for no better than the messengers of death ; 
indeed, others carrying the infection along with them, 
spread it very unhappily into the remotest parts of the 
kingdom. 

The women and servants that were turned off from their 

1 Coopers who make casks for articles tliat are not liquid. 
^ Carvers in wood. 

3 Dealers in cordage and similar necessaries for ships. 
" Carvers of figureheads and other ornaments. 
' Men working on lighters, barges used in unloading ships. 
« Greatly? 



92 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



places were employed as nurses to tend the sick in all 
places ; and this took off a very great number of them. 

And which/ though a melancholy article in itself, yet 
was a deliverance in its kind, namely, the plague, which 
raged in a dreadful manner from the middle of August to 
the middle of October, carried off in that time thirty or 
forty thousand of these very people, which, had they been 
left, would certainly have been an insufferable burden, by 
their poverty ; that is to say, the whole city could not 
have supported the expense of them, or have provided food 
for them ; and they would, in time, have been even driven 
to the necessity of plundering either the city itself, or 
the country adjacent, to have subsisted themselves,^ which 
would, first or last, have put the whole nation, as well as 
the city, into the utmost terror and confusion. 

It was observable then that this calamity of the people 
made them very humble ; for now, for about nine weeks 
together, there died near a thousand a day, one day with 
another ; even by the account of the weekly bills, Avhich 
yet, I have reason to be assured, never gave a full account 
by many thousands ; the confusion being such, and the 
carts working in the dark when they carried the dead, that 
in some places no account at all was kept, but they Avorked 
on ; the clerks and sextons not attending for weeks together, 
and not knowing what number they carried. This account 
is verified by the following bills of mortality. 

Of all Diseases. 

Aug. 8 to Aiig. 15 5319, 

— to 22 5668, 

to 29 7496 , 



From 



A^ig. 29 to Se2:)f. 5 8252 



12 
19 
30 



7690, 
,8297 
6100, 



Sept. 27 to Oct. 3 5728, 

to 10 5068, 



Of the Plague. 

3880 

4237 

6102 

6988 

6544 

7165 

5533 

4929 

4227 



This fact. 



59,918 49,605 
^ To obtain subsistence for themselves. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



93 



So that the gross ^ of the people were ^ carried off in 
these two months ; for, as the whole number which was 
brought in to die of the plague was but 68,590, here is 
fifty thousand of them, within a trifle, in two months ; I 
say fifty thousand, because as there wants 395 in the num- 
ber above, so there wants two days of two months in the 
account of time.^ 

Now, when I say that the parish officers did not give in a 
full account, or were not to be depended upon for their ac- 
count, let any one but consider how men could be exact in 
such a time of dreadful distress, and when many of them 
were taken sick themselves, and perhaps died in the very 
time when their accounts were to be given in ; I mean the 
parish-clerks, besides inferior officers ; for though these poor 
men ventured at all hazards,^ yet they were far from being 
exempt from the common calamity ; especially if it be true 
that the parish of Stepney had, within the year, 116 sextons, 
grave-diggers, and their assistants ; that is to say, bearers, 
bell-men, and drivers of carts^ for carrying off the dead 
bodies. 

Indeed, the work was not of such a nature as to allow 
them leisure to take an exact tale of the dead bodies, which 
were all huddled together, in the dark, into a pit ; which 
pit, or trench, no man could come nigh but at the utmost 
peril. I have observed often, that in the parishes of Aid- 
gate, Cripplegate, Whitechapel, and Stepney, there were 
five, six, seven, and eight hundred in a week in the bills ; 
whereas, if we may believe the opinion of those that lived 
in the city all the time, as well as I,^ there died sometimes 
two thousand a week in those parishes ; and I saw it under 
the hand ^ of one that made as strict an examination as he 
could, that there really died a hundred thousand people of 
the plague in it that one year ; whereas, in the bills, the 
article of the plague was but 68,590. 



' The greater part. Was. 
^ There seems, on the conti ary, to be an excess of two days. 
Ran all risks. Mine. I'ositively stated in writing 



94 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



If I may be allowed to give my opinion, by what I saw 
with my eyes, and heard from other people that were eye- 
witnesses, I do verily believe the same, viz., that there died, 
at least, a hundred thousand of the plague only, besides 
other distempers ; and ^ besides those which - died in the 
fields and highways, and secret places, out of the compass 
of the communication, as it was called, and who were not 
put down in the bills, though they really belonged to the 
body of the inhabitants. It was known to us all, that 
abundance of poor despairing creatures, who had the dis- 
temper upon them, and were grown stupid or melancholy 
by their misery, as many were, wandered away into the 
fields and woods, and into secret, uncouth ^ places, almost 
anywhere, to creep into a bush or hedge, and die. 

The inhabitants of the villages adjacent, would, in pity, 
carry them food, and set it at a distance, that they might 
fetch it if they were able, and sometimes they were not able ; 
and the next time they went, they would find the poor 
wretches lie ^ dead, and the food untouched. The number 
of these miserable objects were ^ many ; and I know so 
many that perished thus, and so exactly where, that I be- 
lieve I could go to the very place and dig their bones up 
still ; for the country people would go and dig a hole at a 
distance from them, and then, with long poles and hooks 
at the end of them, drag the bodies into these pits, and 
then throw the earth in form, as far as they could cast it, 
to cover them ; taking notice how the wind blew, and so 
come on that side which the seamen call to windward, that 
the scent of the bodies might blow from them. And thus 
great numbers went out of the world who were never 
known, or any account of them taken, as well within the 
bills of mortality as without. 

This, indeed, I had, in the main, only from the relation 
of others ; for I seldom walked into the fields, except tow- 
ards Bethnal Green and Hackney ; or as hereafter.*^ But 

' " And" is here unnecessary. MVho. Unknown, outoL'tlie way. 
* Lying. ^ Was. As I shall relate hereafter. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



95 



when I did walk, I always saw a great many poor wander- 
ers at a distance, but I could know little of their cases ; 
for, whether it were in the street or in the fields, if we had 
seen anybody coming, it was a general method to walk 
away ; yet I believe the account is exactly true. 

As this puts me upon mentioning ^ my walking the 
streets and fields, I cannot omit taking notice what a deso- 
late place the city was at that time. The great street I 
lived in, which is known to be one of the broadest of all 
the streets of London, I mean of the suburbs as well as the 
liberties, all the side where the butchers lived, especially 
without the bars,^ was more like a green field than a paved 
street, and the people generally went in the middle with 
the horses and carts. It is true, that the farthest end, 
towards Whitechapel church, was not all paved, but even 
the part that was paved was full of grass also ; but this 
need not seem strange, since the great streets within the 
city, such as Leadenhall Street, Bishopsgate Street, Corn- 
hill, and even the Exchange itself, had grass growing in 
them in several places ; neither cart nor coach was seen in 
the streets from morning to evening, except some country 
carts to bring roots and beans, or pease, hay, and straw, to 
the market, and those but very few compared to what was 
usual. As for coaches, they were scarce used but to carry 
sick people to the pesthouse and to other hospitals, and 
some few to carry physicians to such places as they thought 
fit to venture to visit ; for really coaches were dangerous 
things, and people did not care to venture into them, be- 
cause they did not know who might have been carried in 
them last ; and sick infected people were, as I have said, 
ordinarily carried in them to the pesthouses, and some- 
times people expired in them as they went along. 

It is true, when the infection came to such a height as I 
have now mentioned, there were very few physicians who 
cared to stir abroad to sick houses, and very many of the 
' Leads to my meutiouiug. Tlie old city barriers. 



96 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



most eminent of the faculty were dead, as well as the sur- 
geons also ; for now it was indeed a dismal time, and, for 
about a month together, not taking any notice of the bills 
of mortality, I believe there did not die less than fifteen or 
seventeen hundred a day, one day with another.^ 

One of the worst days we had in the whole time, as I 
thought, was in the beginning of September ; when, in- ' 
deed, good people were beginning to think that God was 
resolved to make a full end of the people in this miserable 
city. This was at that time when the plague was fully 
come into the eastern parishes. The parish of Aldgate, if 
I may give my opinion, buried above one thousand a week 
for two weeks, though the bills did not say so many ; but 
it ^ surrounded me at so dismal a rate, that there was not a 
house in twenty uninfected. In the Minories, in Hounds- 
ditch, and in those parts of Aldgate parish about the 
Butcher Row, and the alleys over-against me, I say, in those 
places death reigned in every corner. Whitechapel parish 
was in the same condition, and though much less ^ than 
the parish I lived in, yet buried near six hundred a week, 
by the bills, and in my opinion, near twice as many ; 
whole families, and, indeed, whole streets of families, were 
swept away together ; insomuch, that it was frequent for 
neighbours to call to the bell-man to go to such and such 
houses and fetch out the people, for that they were all 
dead. 

And, indeed, the work of removing the dead bodies by 
carts was now grown so very odious and dangerous, that it 
Avas complained of that the bearers did not take care to 
clear such houses where all the inhabitants were dead, but 
that some of the bodies lay unburied, till the neighbour- 
ing families were offended by the stench, and consequently 
infected. And this neglect of the officers was such that 
the churchwardens and constables were sunnnoned to look 
after it ; and even the justices of the handets were obliged 
to venture tlieir lives among thorn, to quicken and cii- 
* Oil the average. '-^ The phigue. ^ Less so. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



97 



courage them ; for innumenible of the bearers died of the 
distemper, infected by the bodies they were obliged to come 
so near ; and had it not been that the number of people 
who wanted employment and wanted bread, as I have said 
before, was so great that necessity drove them to under- 
take anything and venture anything, they would never 
have found people to be employed ; and then the bodies of 
the dead would have lain above ground and have jDerished 
and rotted in a dreadful manner. 

But the magistrates cannot be enough commended in 
this, that they kept such good order for the burying of the 
dead that as fast as any of those they employed to carry olf 
and bury the dead fell sick or died, as was many times the 
case, they immediately supplied the places with others, 
which, by reason of the great number of poor that was left 
out of business, as above, ^ was not hard to do. This oc- 
casioned that,^ notwithstanding the infinite number of 
people which ^ died, and were sick, almost all together, yet 
they were always cleared away, and carried off every 
night ; so that it was never to be said of London that the 
living were not able to bury the dead. 

As the desolation was greater during those terrible times, 
so the amazement of the people increased ; and a thousand 
unaccountable things they would do in the violence of their 
fright, as others did the same in the agonies of their dis- 
temper ; and this part was very affecting. Some went 
roaring, and crying, and wringing their hands along the 
street ; some would go praying and lifting up their hands 
to heaven, calling upon God for mercy. I cannot say, in- 
deed, whether this was not in their distraction ; but, be it 
so, it was still an indication of a more serious mind, when 
they had the use of their senses, and was much better, 
even as it was, than the frightful yellings and cryings that 
every day, and especially in the evenings, were heard in 
some streets. I suppose the world has heard of the famous 
1 As is stated above. 2 The fact that. ^ Who. 

7 



98 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



Solomon Eas^le^ an entlmsiast ; lie^ though not infected at 
all^ but in his head, went about, denouncing of judg- 
ment ^ upon the city in a frightful manner ; sometimes 
quite naked, and with a pan of burning charcoal on his 
head. What he said or pretended,^ indeed, I could not 
learn. 

I will not say whether that clergyman was distracted or 
not, or whether he did it out of pure zeal for the poor peo- 
ple, who went every evening through the streets of White- 
chapel, and, with his hands lifted up, repeated that part of 
the liturgy of the church, continually, " Spare us, good 
Lord ; spare thy people whom thou has redeemed with thy 
most precious blood ; " I say, I cannot speak positively of 
these things, because these were only the dismal objects 
which represented ^ themselves to me as I looked through 
my chamber windows, for I seldom opened the casements,* 
while I confined myself within doors during that most vio- 
lent raging of the pestilence, when, indeed, many began to 
think, and even to say, that there would none escape ; and, 
indeed, I began to think so, too, and, therefore, kept with- 
in doors for about a fortnight, and never stirred out. But 
I could not hold it.^ Besides, there were some people, 
who, notwithstanding the danger, did not omit publicly to 
attend the worship of God, even in the most dangerous 
times. And, though it is true that a great many of the 
clergy did shut up their churches and fled,^ as other people 
did, for the safety of their lives, yet all did not do so ; 
some ventured to officiate, and to keep up the assemblies of 
the people by constant prayers, and sometimes sermons or 
brief exhortations to repentance and reformation ; and this 
as long as they would hear them. And dissenters ' did the 

1 Denouncing judgment against— an old idiom. See Deuteronomy 
XXX. 18. 

What he pretended to be about. s Presented. 

^ Windows swung on liinges and opening like double doors. 
^ Could not continue that practice " Flee. 

Those belonging to some other Protestant sect than the official 
Church of England. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



99 



like also, and even in the very clinrches where the parish 
ministers ^ were either dead or fled ; nor was there any room 
for making any difference at such a time as this was. 

It pleased God that I was still spared, and very hearty 
and sound in health, but very impatient of being pent up 
within doors without air, as I had been for fourteen days 
or thereabouts ; and I could not restrain myself, but I 
would go and carry a letter for my brother to the post- 
house : then it was, indeed, that I observed a profound 
silence in the streets. When I came to the post-house, as 
I went to put in my letter, I saw a man stand in one cor- 
ner of the yard and talking to another at a window, and a 
third had opened a door belonging to the office. In the 
middle of the yard lay a small leather purse, with two keys 
hanging at it, with money in it, but nobody would meddle 
with it. I asked how long it had lain there ; the man at 
the window said it had lain almost an hour, but they had 
not meddled with it, because they did not know but the 
person who dropt it might come back to look for it. I 
had no such need of money, nor was the sum so big, that I 
had any inclination to meddle with it, or to get the money 
at the hazard it might be attended with ; so I seemed to 
go away, when the man who had opened the door said he 
would take it up ; but so ^ that if the right owner came for 
it he should be sure to have it. So lie went in and fetched 
a pail of water, and set it down hard by the purse, then 
went again and fetched some gunpowder, and cast a good 
deal of powder upon the purse, and then made, a train 
from that which he had thrown loose upon the purse ; the 
train reached about two yards ; after this he goes in a third 
time, and fetches out a pair of tongs red-hot, and which 
he had prepared, I suppose, on purpose ; and first setting 
fire to the train of powder, that singed the purse and also 

' The parish churches and tlie officially recognized clergy were of 
the Church of England. 

' But determined to go. ^ But would so deal with it. 



100 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



smoked the air snflficiently. But he was not content Avith 
that, but he then takes up the purse with the tongs, hold- 
ing it so long till the tongs burnt through the purse, and 
then he shook the money out into the pail of water, so he 
carried it in. The money, as I remember, was about thir- 
teen shillings, and some smooth groats ^ and brass far- 
things.^ 

Much about the same time, I walked out into the fields 
towards Bow ; for I had a great mind to see how things were 
managed in the river and among the ships ; and as I had 
some concern in shipping, I had a notion that it had been ^ 
one of the best ways of securing one's self from the infec- 
tion to have retired into a ship ; and, musing how to satisfy 
my curiosity in that point, I turned away over the fields, 
from Bow to Bromley and down to Blackwall, to the stairs 
that are there for landing or taking water. ^ 

Here I saw a poor man walking on the bank or sea-wall, 
as they call it, by himself. I walked awhile also about, 
seeing the houses all shut up ; at last I fell into some talk, 
at a distance, with this poor man. First I asked how peo- 
ple did thereabouts ? ''"'Alas ! sir,"*' says he, '^almost deso- 
late, all dead or sick : here are very few families in this 
part, or in that village," pointing at Poplar, ^Svhere half 
of them are not dead already, and the rest sick." Then 
he, pointing to one house, ^^They are all dead," said he, 
^'^and the house stands open ; nobody dares go into it. A 
poor thief," says he, '^^ ventured in to steal something, but 
he paid dear for his theft, for he was carried to the church- 
yard too, last night." Then he pointed to several other 
houses. There," says he, ^^they are all dead, the man 
and his wife and five children. There," says he, ''they 

1 An Englisli silver coin, not now in use, worth four-pence (about 
eight cents). 

2 The farthing, worth a quarter of an English penny, or about lialf 
a cent, is no longer coined. •'■ Would have been. 

"Taking water" is here probably equivalent to " taking to the 
water, ' or " getting down to the water," the opposite of " landing." 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAQUE 



101 



are shut w]) ; you see a Avatcliman at the door and so of 
other houses. " Why/' says ^' what do you here all alone ? " 
"Why/" says he^ ''I am a poor, desolate man; it hath 
pleased God I am not yet visited, though my family is, and 
one of my children dead.'" "How do you mean then/" said 
I, "that you are not visited ?" "Why/" says he, "that is 
my house/" pointing to a very little, low, hoarded house, 
"and there my poor wife and two children live,"" said he, 
"if they may be said to live ; for my wife and one of the 
children are visited, but I do not come at them.'" And 
with that word I saw the tears run very plentifully down 
his face ; and so they did down mine, too, I assure you. 

"But,"" said I, "why do you not come at them ? How 
can you abandon your own flesh and blood?"" "Oh, sir,"" 
says he, "the Lord forbid ; I do not abandon them ; I work 
for them as much as I am able ; and, blessed be the Lord, 
I keep them from want."" And with that I observed he 
lifted up his eyes to heaven with a countenance that pres- 
ently ^ told me I had happened on a man that was no hypo- 
crite, but a serious, religious, good man ; and his ejacula- 
tion was an expression of thankfulness, that, in such a 
condition as he was in, he should be able to say his family 
did not want. "Well,"" says I, "honest man, that is a 
great mercy, as things go now with the poor. But how do 
you live then, and how are you kept from the dreadful ca- 
lamity that is now upon us all?"" "A¥hy, sir,"" says he, "I 
am a waterman, and there is my boat,"" says he, "and the 
boat serves me for a house ; I work in it in the day, and I 
sleep in it in the night, and what I get I lay it down upon 
that stone,"" says he, showing me a broad stone on the other 
side of the street, a good way from his house ; " and then," 
says he, "I halloo and call to them till I make them hear, 
and they come and fetch it."" 

"Well, friend,"" says I, "but how can you get money as 
a waterman ? Does anybody go by water these times ? "' 
"Yes, sir,"" says he; "in the way I am employed there 
' At once. 



102 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAQUE 



does. Do yon see tliere/'^ says lie, '^five ships lie^ at 
anclior/'' pointing down tlie river a good wa}^ below the 
town ; " and do you see/^ says he, " eight or ten ships lie at 
the chain there, and at anchor yonder/^ pointing above the 
town. " All those ships have families on board, of their 
merchants and owners, and snch-like, who have locked 
themselves np, and live on board, close shnt in, for fear of 
the infection ; and I tend on them to fetch things for them, 
carry letters, and do what is absolutely necessary, that they 
may not be obliged to come on shore ; and every night I 
fasten my boat on board one ^ of the ship's boats, and there 
I sleep by myself, and, blessed be God, I am preserved 
hitherto/' 

" Well,'' said I, friend, but will they let you come on 
board after you have been on shore here, when this has 
been such a terrible place, and so infected as it is ? " 

^MVhy, as to that," said he, '^I very seldom go up the 
ship side, but deliver what I bring to their boat,^ or lie by 
the side and they hoist it on board : if I did, I think they 
are in no danger from me, for I never go into any house 
on shore, or touch anybody, no, not of my own family ; 
but I fetch provisions for them." 

Nay," says I, " but that may be worse, for you must 
have those provisions of somebody or other ; and since all 
this part of the town is so infected, it is dangerous so much 
as to speak with anybody ; for the village," said I, ^'^ is as 
it were the beginning of London, though it be at some dis- 
tance from it." 

That is true," added he, but you do not understand 
me right. I do not buy provisions for them here ; I row 
up to Greenwich, and buy fresh meat there, and sometimes 
I row down the river to AVoolwich and buy there ; then I 
go to single farm houses on the Kentish side, where I am 
known, and buy fowls, and eggs, and butter, and bring to 
the ships as they direct me, sometimes one, sometimes the 

* Lyiug. - Fasten my boat to one. 

^ Deliver to (on) tlieir boat ^vhat I bring. 



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103 



other.* I seldom come on shore here ; and I came only 
now to call my wife and hear how my little family do, and 
give them a little money which I received last night." 

" Poor man ! said I ; " and how much hast thou'-^ gotten 
for them ? " 

" I have gotten four shillings/' said he, " Avhicli is a 
great sum, as things go now with poor men ; but they 
have given me a bag of bread, too, and a salt fish, and 
some flesh ; so all helps out.'' 

^' Well," said I, and have you given it them yet ?" 

No," said he, " but I have called, and my wife has 
answered that she cannot come out yet, but in half an hour 
she hopes to come, and I am waiting for her. Poor wom- 
an ! " says he, she is brought sadly down ; she has had a 
swelling, and it is broke, and I hope she will recover, but 
I fear the child will die ; but it is the Lord ! " — Here he 
stopt, and wept very much. 

Well, honest friend," said I, thou hast a sure com- 
forter, if thou hast brought thyself to be resigned to the 
will of God ; he is dealing with us all in judgment." 

Oh, sir," says he, it is infinite mercy if any of us are 
spared ; and who am I to rej)ine ! " 

Say'st thou so," said I ; " and how much less is my 
faith than thine ? " And here my heart smote me, sug- 
gesting how much better this poor man's foundation was, 
on which he stayed in the danger, than mine ; that he had 
nowhere to fly ; that he had a family to bind him to attend- 
ance, which I had not ; and mine was mere presumption, 
his a true dependance, and a courage resting on God ; and 
yet, that he used all possible caution for his safety. 

I turned a little way from the man, while these thoughts 
engaged me ; for, indeed, I could no more refrain from 
tears than he. 

At length, after some further talk, the poor woman 
1 Sometimes another. 

* Note the use of the second person, tlien not uncommon in address- 
ing inferiors and familiar friends. 



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opened the door, and called, ''Robert, Kobert ; he an- 
SAvered, and bid ^ her stay a few moments, and he would 
come ; so he ran down the common stairs to his boat, and 
fetched up a sack in which was^ the provisions he had 
brought from the ships ; and when he returned, he hal- 
looed again ; then he went to the great stone which he 
showed me, and emptied the sack, and laid all out, every- 
thing by themselves, and then retired ; and his wife came 
Avith a little boy to fetch them away ; and he called, and 
said such a captain had sent such a thing, and such a 
captain such a thing, and at the end adds, " God has sent 
it all, give thanks to him/' When the poor woman had 
taken up all, she was so weak she could not carry it at once 
in, though the weight was not much neither ; ^ so she left 
the biscuit, which was in a little bag, and left a little boy 
to watch it till she came again. 

Well, but/' says I to him, " did you leave her the four 
shillings, too, which you said was your Aveek's pay ? " 

Yes, yes,'' says he ; " you shall hear her own it." So 
he calls again, "Rachel, Rachel," Avhich, it seems was her 
name, " did you take up the money ? " " Yes," said she. 
''^ How much was it ?" said he. "Four shillings and a 
groat," said she. " Well, well," says he, " the Lord keep 
you all ; " and so he turned to go away. 

As I could not refrain from contributing tears to this 
man's story, so neither could I refrain my charity for his 
assistance ; so I called him ; " Hark thee, friend," said I, 
"come hither, for I believe thou art in health, that I may 
venture thee ; " ^ so I pulled out my hand, which was in 
my pocket before. "Here," says I, "go and call thy 
Rachel once more, and give her a little more comfort from 
me. God will never forsake a family that trusts in him as 
thou dost ; " so I gave him four other shillings, and bid 
him go lay them on the stone, and call his wife. 

I have not Avords to express the poor man's thankfulness, 
neither could he express it himself but by tears running 
'Bade. -Were. 'Eitlier. * "Run my cliaiices witli thee. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



105 



down his face. He called his Avife, and told her God had 
moved the heart of a stranger^ upon hearing their condi- 
tion, to give them all that money, and a great deal more 
such as that he said to her.^ The Avoman, too, made signs 
of the like thankfulness, as well to heaven as to me, and 
joyfully picked it \\^ ; and I parted with no money all that 
year that I thought better bestowed. 

I then asked the poor man if the distemper had not 
reached to Greenwich. He said it had not till about a 
fortnight before, but that then he feared it had ; but that 
it was only at that end of the town which lay south towards 
Deptford Bridge ; that he went only to a butcher's shop 
and a grocer's, where he generally bought such things as 
they sent him for, but was very careful. 

I asked him, then, how it came to pass, that those peo- 
ple who had so shut themselves up in the ships had not 
laid in sufficient stores of all things necessary ? He said 
some of them had, but, on the other hand, some did not 
come on board till they were frightened into it, and till it 
was too dangerous for them to go to the proper people to 
lay in quantities of things, and that he waited on two ships, 
which he showed me, that had laid in little or nothing but 
biscuit-bread and ship-beer, ^ and that he had bought every- 
thing else almost for them. I asked him if there were 
any more ships that had separated themselves as those had 
done. He told me, Yes, all the way up from the point, 
right against Greenwich, to within the shores of Lime- 
house and Redriff, all the ships that could have room 
rid 3 two and two in the middle of the stream ; and that some 
of them had several families on board. I asked him if the 
distemper had not reached them. He said, he believed it 
had not, except two or three ships, whose people had not 
been so watchful as to keep the seamen from going on 

'Evidently referring to the words of encouragement 
Probably beer intended to be used immediately, and not so pre- 
pared as to keep for a long while. 
3 Rode. 



106 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



shore as others had been ; and he said it was a ver}- fine 
sight to see how the ships hiy uj^ the pooL^ 

When he said he was going over to Greenwich, as soon 
as the tide began to come in, I asked if he Avould let me go 
with him and bring me back ; for that I had a great mind 
to see how the ships were ranged, as he had told me. He 
told me, if I wonld assure him on the word of a Christian 
and of an honest man, that I had not the distemper, he 
would. I assured him that I had not ; that it had pleased 
God to preserve me ; that I lived in AVhitechapel, but was 
too impatient of being so long within doors, and that I had 
ventured out so far for the refreshment of a little air, but 
that none in my house had so much as been touched with 
it. 

"Well, sir," sa^^s he, "as your charity has been moved 
to pity me and my poor family, sure you cannot have so 
little pity left as to put yourself into my boat if you were 
not sound in health, which would be nothins^ less than 
killing me and ruining my whole family."^ The poor man 
troubled me so much when he spoke of his family with 
such a sensible concern and in such an affectionate manner, 
that I could not satisfy myself at first to go at all. I told 
him, I would lay aside my curiosity rather than make him 
uneasy ; though I was sure, and very thankful for it, that 
I had no more distemper upon me than the freshest man 
in the world. Well, he would not have me put it off 
neither, but, to let me see how confident he Avas that I was 
just to him. he now importuned me to go : so. when the 
tide came up to his boat, I went in. and he carried me to 
Greenwich. Wliile he bought the things which he had in 
charge to buy. I walked up to tlie top of the hill under 
which the town stands, and on the east side of tlie town, 
to get a prospect of the river •. but it was a surprising sight 
to see the number of ships which lay in rows, two and two, 
and in some places, two or three such lines in the breadth 

' The protected water just mentioned, and described more particu- 
larly below. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



107 



of the river, and this not only np to the town, between the 
houses whicli we call Ratclift* and Redriff, which they name 
the pool, but even down the whole river, as far as the head 
of Long Reach, which is as far as the hills give ^ us leave 
to see it. 

I cannot guess at the number of ships, but I think there 
must have been several hundreds of sail, and I could not 
but applaud the contrivance ; for ten thousand people and 
more, who attended ship affairs,^ were certainly sheltered 
here from the violence of the contagion, and lived very safe 
and very easy. 

I returned to my own dwelling, very well satisfied with 
my day's journey, and particularly with the poor man ; 
also, I rejoiced to see that such little sanctuaries were pro- 
vided for so many families on board, in a time of such 
desolation. I observed also, that, as the violence of the 
plague had increased, so the ships which had families on 
board removed and went farther otf, till, as I was told, 
some went quite away to sea, and put into such harbours 
and safe roads on the north coast as they could best come 
at. 

But it was also true that all the people who thus left the 
land and lived on board the ships, were not entirely safe 
from the infection ; for many died, and were thrown over- 
board into the river, some in coffins, and some, as I heard, 
without coffins, whose bodies were seen sometimes to drive 
up and down with the tide in the river. 

But I believe I may venture to say, that, in those ships 
which were thus infected, it either happened where the 
people had recourse to them too late, and did not fly to the 
ship till they had stayed too long on shore, and had the 
distemper upon them, though perhaps they might not per- 
ceive it ; and so the distemper did not come to them on 
board the ships, but they really carried it with them. 
Or, it was in these ships where the poor waterman said 
they had not had time to furnish themselves with x)rovi- 

' Gave. '■^ Who had to do with ships, 



108 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



sioiis, but were obliged to send often on shore to buy what 
they had occasion for, or suffered boats to come to them 
from the shore ; and so the distemper was brought insen- 
sibly among them. 

And here I cannot but take notice that the strange 
temper of the people of London at that time contributed 
extremely to their own destruction. The plague began, as 
I have observed, at the other end of the town, namely in 
Longacre, Drury Lane, etc., and came on towards the 
city very gradually and slowly. It was felt at first in De- 
cember, then again in February, then again in April, and 
always but a very little at a time ; then it sto^^ped till May, 
and even the last week in May there were but seventeen in 
all that end of the town ; and all this while, even so long 
as till there died above 3,000 a week, 3^et had the people 
in Eedriff, and in AVapping and Ratcliff, on both sides 
the river, and almost all South wark side, a mighty fancy 
that they should not be visited, or, at least, that it would 
not be so violent among them. Some people fancied the 
smell of the pitch and tar, and such other things, as oil, 
and resin, and brimstone, which is much used by all 
trades relating to shipping, would preserve them. Others 
argued it,^ because it was in its extremest violence in "West- 
minster, and the parish of St. Gileses and St. Andrew's, 
etc., and began to abate again, before it came among them, 
which was true, indeed, in part. For example : — 

Total this 

From the 8th to the 15th of xiugust. week. 

St. Giles's in ) ^ Stepnev lO: ) 

the Fields \ St. Mao-.' Bermondsey. . . 'U 1030 

Cripplegate 886 Eotlierhithe ' 'S \ 

Total this 

From the 15th to the 22nd of August. week. 

St. Giles's in Stepnev 2T3") 

the Fields \ ^'^ St. Mag. Bermondsey. ... 36 [ 5319 
Cripplegate 81T Eotlierhithe 2 ) 

' Others :;u argued. -St. Margaret's. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



109 



N. B. tliat ^ it was observed that the numbers mentioned 
in Stepney parish at that time were generally all on that 
side where Stepney parish joined to Shoreditch, which we 
now call Spitalfields^ where the parish of Stepney comes 
up to the very wall of Shoreditch churchyard ; and the 
plague at this time was abated at St. Giles's in the Fields, 
and raged most violently in Cripplegate, Bishopsgate, and 
Shoreditch parishes, but there were not ten people a Aveek 
that died of it in all that part of Stepney parish which takes 
in Limehouse, Ratcliff Highway, and which are ^ now the 
parishes of Shad well and Wapping, even to St. Katlierine's 
by the Tower, till after the whole month of August was 
expired ; but they paid for it afterwards, as I shall observe 
by and by. 

This I say, made the people of Redriff and Wapping, 
Ratcliff and Limehouse, so secure, and flatter themselves 
so much with the plague's going off without reaching them, 
that they took no care either to fly into the country, or 
shut themselves up ; nay, so far were they from stirring 
that they rather received their friends and relations from 
the city into their houses ; and several from other places 
really took sanctuary in that part of the town, as a place 
of safety, and as a place which they thought Grod would 
pass over, and not visit as the rest was visited. 

And this was the reason that, when it came upon them, 
they were more surprised, more unprovided, and more at a 
loss what to do than they ^ were in other places, for when it 
came among them really, and with violence, as it did, indeed, 
in September and October, there was then no stirring out 
into the country ; nobody would suffer a stranger to come 
near them,'* no, nor near the towns where they dwelt ; 
and, as I have been told, several that wandered into the 
country on the Surrey side, were found starved to death in 
the woods and commons, tliat country ])oing more open and 
more woody than any other part so near Loii(U)ii, ('si)ecially 

^ Note well {Nota Bene) that. ^ Forms. 

^ Than people were. ' Ilim. 



110 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



about Norwood, and the parishes of Camberwell, Diilwich, 
and Lusum, where, it seems, nobody durst relieve the poor 
distressed people for fear of the infection. 

This notion having, as I said, prevailed with the people 
in that part of the town, was in part the occasion, as I said 
before, that they had recourse to ships for their retreat ; 
and where they did this early, and with prudence, furnish- 
ing themselves so ^ with provisions, so that they had no 
need to go on shore for supplies, or sulier boats to come on 
board to bring them ; I say, where they did so, they had 
certainly the safest retreat of any people w^hatsoever : but 
the distress was such that people ran on board in their 
fright without bread to eat ; and some into ships that had 
no men on board to remove them farther off, or to take the 
boat and go down the river to buy provisions, where it may 
be done safely ; and these often suffered, and were infected 
on board as much as on shore. 

xls the richer sort got into ships, so the lower rank 
got into hoys,^ smacks, lighters, and fishing-boats ; and 
many, especially watermen, lay in their boats ; but those 
made sad work of it, especially the latter, for, going about 
for provision, and perhaps to get their subsistence, the in- 
fection got in among them, and made a fearful havoc ; 
many of the watermen died alone in their wherries, as they 
rid 2 at their roads, as well above bridge ^ as below, and were 
not found sometimes till they were not in condition for 
anybody to touch or come near them. 

Indeed, the distress of the people at this seafaring end 
of the town was very deplorable, and deserved the greatest 
commiseration ; but, alas ! this was a time when every oner's 
private safety lay so near them, that they had no room to 
pity the distresses of others ; for every one had death, as it 
were, at his door, and many even in their families ; and 
knew not what to do, or whither to fly. 



' Til us. 
^ llode. 



- Small vessels, usually sloop-rigged. 
Loudon Bridge. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



111 



This^ I say^ took away all com23assion ; self-preservation, 
indeed, appeared here to be the first law. For the children 
ran away from their parents, as they languished in the ut- 
most distress ; and, in some places, though not so frequent 
as the other, parents did the like to their children ; nay, 
some dreadful examples there were, and particularly two in 
one week, of distressed mothers, raving and distracted, 
killing their own children ; one whereof was not far off 
from where I dwelt, the poor lunatic creature not living 
herself long enough to he sensible of the sin of what she 
had done, much less to be punished for it. 

It is not, indeed, to be wondered at ; for the danger of 
immediate death to ourselves took away all bowels ^ of love, 
all concern for one another. I speak in general ; for there 
were many instances of immovable affection, pity, and 
duty, in many, and some that came to my knowledge, that 
is to say, by hearsay ; for I shall not take upon me to vouch 
the truth of the particulars.^ . . . 

There is no room to doubt but the misery of those that 
gave suck was in proportion as great. Our bills of mortality 
could give but little light in ^ this ; yet some it did ; there 
were several more than usual starved at nurse ; but this 
was nothing. The misery was, where they were — first, 
starved for want of a nurse, the mother dying, and all the 
family and the infants found dead by them, merely for 
want ; and, if I may speak my opinion, I do believe that 
many hundreds of poor helpless infants perished in this 
manner. Secondly ^ (not starved but), poisoned by the 
nurse ; nay, even where the mother has been nurse, and 
having received the infection, has poisoned, that is, infected 
the infant with her milk, even before they knew they were 
infected themselves ; nay, and the infant has died in such 
a case before the mother. I cannot but remember to leave 

' A familiar biblical expression. 

MIere follow detailed statistics in regard to the mortality among 
mothers and young infants. -'On. 

' What follows should strictly bo a part of the preceding sentence. 



112 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



this admonition upon record, if ever such another dreadful 
visitation should happen in this city, that all women . . . 
that give suck should be gone, if they have any possible 
means, out of the j)lace ; because their misery, if infected, 
will so much exceed all other j^eople's. 

I could tell here dismal stories of living infants being 
found sucking the breasts of their mothers, or nurses, after 
they have been dead of the plague. Of a mother, in the 
parish where I lived, who, having a child that was not wxll, 
sent for an apothecary ^ to view the child, and when he 
came, as the relation ^ goes, was giving the child suck at 
her breast, and to all appearance was herself very well ; 
but when the apothecary came close to her, he saw the 
tokens upon that breast with which she was suckling the 
child. He was surprised enough to be sure, but not will- 
ing to fright the poor woman too much, he desired she 
would give the child into his hand : so he takes the child, 
and going to a cradle in the room, lays it in, and, opening 
its clothes, found the tokens upon the child too. and both 
died before he could get home to send a preventive medicine 
to the father of the child, to whom he had told their con- 
dition. AVhether the child infected the nurse-mother, ^ or 
the mother the child, was not certain, but the last most 
likely. 

Likewise ^ of a child brought home to the ^ 23arents from 
a nurse that had died of the plague : yet the tender mother 
would not refuse to take in her child, and laid it in her 
bosom, by which she was infected and died, with the child 
in her arms dead also. 

It would make the hardest heart move at the instances 
that were frequently found of tender mothers, tending and 
watching with their dear children, and even dying before 
them ; and sometimes taking the distemper from them. 

' In old times tlie apotliecarv fre'iuently performed many or all of 
the functions of the physician. 

-The story. " Xursing-mother. I could likewise tell. 'Its. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



113 



and dying, when the child^ for whom the ali'ectionate heart 
had been sacrificed, has got over it and escaped.^ . . . 

I have heard also of some, wlio, on the death of their 
relations, have grown stnpid with the insupportable sorrow ; 
and of one in particular, who was so absolutely overcome 
with the pressure upon his spirits, that by degrees his head 
sunk into his body so between his shoulders that the crown 
of his head was very little seen above the bone of his 
shoulders ; and by degrees, losing both voice and sense, his 
face looking forward, lay against his collar-bone, and could 
not be kept up any otherwise, unless held up by the hands 
of other people ; and the poor man never came to himself 
again, but languished near a year in that condition, and 
died. Isov was he ever once seen to lift up his eyes, or to 
look upon any particular object. 

I cannot undertake to give any other than a summary of 
such passages as these, because it was not possible to come 
at the particulars, where sometimes the whole families, 
where such things happened, were carried off by the dis- 
temper : but there were innumerable cases of this kind, 
which presented ^ to the eye and the ear, even in passing 
along the streets, as I have hinted above ; nor is it easy to 
give any story of this or that family, which ^ there was ^ 
not divers parallel stories to be met with of the same kind. 

But as I am now talking of the time when the plague 
raged at the easternmost parts of the town, how for a long 
time the people of those parts had flattered themselves that 
they should escape, and how they were surprised when it 
came upon them as it did ; for, indeed, it came upon them 
like an armed man when it did come ; I say, this brings 
me back to the three poor men who wandered from Wap- 
ping, not knowing whither to go or what to do, and whom 

' Here follows an affecting incident of the death of a man through 
grief at the loss of his wife and little child under circumstances of 
peculiar horror 

- Presented themselves. ^ In regard to which. ^ Were. 
8 



114 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGVE 



I mentioned before ; one a biscuit-baker, one a sail-maker, 
and the other a joiner ; all of Wapping or thereabouts. 

The sleepiness and security of that part, as I have ob- 
served, was such that they not only did not shift for them- 
selves, as others did, but they boasted of being safe, and 
of safety being with them ; and many people fled out of 
the city, and out of the infected suburbs, to Wapping, Rat- 
cliff, Limehouse, Poplar, and such places, as to places of 
security ; and it is not at all unlikely that their doing this 
helped to bring the plague that way faster than it might 
otherwise have come. For, though I am much for people's 
flying away, and emptying such a town as this, upon the 
first appearance of a like visitation, and that all people, 
who have any possible retreat, should make use of it in 
time, and begone ; yet I must say, when all that will fly 
are gone, those that are left, and must stand it, should 
stand stock still where they are, and not shift from one 
end of the town, or one part of the town, to the other ; 
for that is the bane and mischief of the whole, and they 
carry the plague from house to house in their very clothes. 

Wherefore were we ordered to kill all the dogs and cats, 
but because, as they Avere domestic animals, and are apt to 
run from house to house, and from street to street, so they 
are capable of carrying the effluvia or infectious steams of 
bodies infected, even in their furs and hair ? and there- 
fore it was, that in the beginning of the infection, an 
order was published by the lord mayor and by the magis- 
trates, according to the advice of the physicians, that all 
the dogs and cats should be immediately killed, and an 
officer was appointed for the execution. 

It is incredible, if their account is to be depended upon, 
what a prodigious number of those creatures were destroyed. 
I think they talked of forty thousand dogs, and five times 
as many cats, few houses being without a cat, some having 
several, sometimes five or six in a house. All possible en- 
deavours were used also to destroy the mice and rats, es- 
> Page 57. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



115 



pecially the latter, by laying rat^s-bane and other poisons 
for them, and a prodigious multitude of them were also 
destroyed. 

I often reflected upon the unprovided condition that the 
whole body of the people were in at the first coming of this 
calamity upon them, and how it was for want of timely 
entering into measures and managements, as well public as 
private, that all the confusions that followed were brought 
upon us ; and that such a prodigious number of people 
sunk 1 in that disaster, which, if proper steps had been 
taken, might. Providence concurring, have been avoided, 
and which, if posterity think fit, they may take a caution 
and warning from ; but I shall come to this part again. 

I come back to my three men : their story has a moral 
in every part of it, and their whole conduct, and that of 
some whom they joined with, is a pattern for all poor men 
to follow, or women either, if ever such a time comes 
again ; and if there was no other end in recording it, I 
think this a very just one, whether my account be exactly 
according to fact or no. 

Two of them were said to be brothers, the one an old 
soldier, but now a biscuit-baker ; the other a lame sailor, 
but now a sail-maker ; the third a joiner. Says John, the 
biscuit-baker, one day to Thomas, his brother, the sail- 
maker, " Brother Tom, what will become of us ? the 
plague grows hot in the city, and increases this way : what 
shall we do ? " 

" Truly, says Thomas, " I am at a great loss what to 
do, for, I find, if it comes down into Wapping, I shall be 
turned out of my lodging." And thus they began to talk 
of it beforehand. 

John. Turned out of your lodging, Tom ! If you are, 
I don't know who will take you in ; for people are so afraid 
of one another now, there is no getting a lodging any- 
where. 

^ Sank. 



116 • JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 

Tlio. Wli}', the people where I lodge are good, civil 
peojole, and have kindness for me, too ; but they say I go 
abroad every day to my work, and it will be dangerous ; 
and they talk of locking themselves n}^, and letting nobody 
come near them. 

Jolin. Why, they are in the right, to be sure, if they re- 
solve to venture staying in town. 

Tlio. ^^ay, I might even resolve to stay within doors, too, 
for, exce^Dt a suit of sails that my master has in hand^ and 
which I am just finishing, I am like to get no more work a 
great while ; ^ there's no trade stirs now, workmen and 
servants are turned off everywhere, so that I might be glad 
to be locked up, too. But I do not see that they will be 
willing to consent to that any more than to the other. 

Jolin. Why, what will you do then, brother ? and what 
shall I do ? for I am almost as bad as you. The people 
where I lodge are all gone into the country, but a maid, and 
she is to go next wxek, and to shut the house quite up, so 
that I shall be turned adrift to ^ the wide world before you ; 
and I am resolved to go away too, if I knew but where to 
go. 

Tlio. We were both distracted we ^ did not go away at 
first, when Ave might ha^ travelled anywhere : there is no 
stirring now ; we shall be starved if we pretend to go out 
of town ; they won't let us have victuals, no, not for our 
mone3^ nor let us come into the towns, much less into their 
houses. 

Jolin. And that which is almost as bad, I have but little 
money to help myself with, neither. 

Tlio. As to that, we might make shift : I have a little, 
though not much ; but I tell you there is no stirring on the 
road. I know a cotiple of poor lionest men in our street 
have attempted to travel ; and at Barnet. or Wlietstone. or 
thereabout, the people offered to fire at them, if they pre- 
ttMidt'd to go forward ; so they are come back again quite 
discouraged. 

' For a great ■while. ' On, ^ Out of our heads tliat we. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



117 



John. I would have veutured their fire, if I had been 
there. If I had been denied food for my money, they 
should have seen me take it before their faces ; and if I 
had tendered money for it, they could not have taken any 
course with me by the law. 

TUo. You talk your old soldier's language, as if you were 
in the Low Countries now ; but this is a serious thing. The 
people have good reason to keep anybody off that they are 
not satisfied are sound, at such a time as this, and Ave must 
not plunder them. 

John. Iso, brother, you mistake the case, and mistake me, 
too : I would plunder nobody ; but for any town upon the 
road to deny me leave to pass through the town in the open 
highway, and deny me provisions for my money, is to say 
the town has a right to starve me to death, which cannot be 
true. 

Tho. But they do not deny you liberty to go back again 
from whence you came, and therefore they do not starve you. 

John. But the next town behind me will, by the same rule, 
deny me leave to go back, and so they do starve me between 
them ; besides, there is no law to prohibit my travelling 
wherever I will on the road. 

Tho. But there will be so much difficulty in disputing 
with them at every town on the road, that it is not for poor 
men to do it, or undertake it, at such a time as this is, 
V especially. 

John. Why, brother, our condition, at this rate, is worse 
than anybody's else ; for we can neither go away nor stay 
here. I am of the same mind with the lepers of Samaria.^ 
If we stay here, we are sure to die. I mean, especially as 
you and I are situated, without a dwelling-house of our oAvn, 
and without lodging in anybody's else ; there is no lying in 
the street at such a time as this ; we had as good ^ go into 
the dead-cart at once. Therefore, I say, if we stay here 
we are sure to die, and if we go away we can but die ; I am 
resolved to be gone. 

'See xvii. 11-19. nVell. 



118 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAQUE 



Tlio. Yon will go aAvay. Whither will yon go ? and what 
can you do ? I would as willingly go away as you, if I knew 
whither ; hut we have no acquaintance,^ no friends. Here 
we were born, and here we must die. 

Jolin. Look you, Tom, the whole kingdom is my native 
country as well as this town. You may as well say, I must 
not go out of my house if it is on fire, as that I must not 
go out of the town I was born in, when it is infected with 
the plague. I was born in England, and have a right to 
live in it if I can. 

Tlio. But you know every vagrant person may, by the 
laws of England, be taken up, and passed back to their last 
legal settlement. 

Jolm. But how shall they make me vagrant ? I desire 
only to travel on upon my lawful occasions. 

Tho. What lawful occasions can we pretend to travel, 
or rather wander, upon ? They will not be put off with 
words. 

Jolm. Is not flying to save our lives a lawful occasion ? 
and do they not all know that the fact is true ? We can- 
not be said to dissemble. 

Tlio. But suppose they let us pass ; whither shall we 
go? 

Jolin. Anywhere to save our lives ; it is time enough to 
consider that when we are got out of this town. If I am 
once out of this dreadful place, I care not where I go. 

Tlio. We shall be driven to great extremities. I know 
not what to think of it. 

Jolm. Well, Tom, consider of it a little. 

This was about the beginning of July ; and though the 
plague was come forward in the west and north parts of 
the town, yet all Wapping, as I have observed before, and 
Redriff, and Ratcliff , and Limehouse, and Poplar — in short, 
Deptford and Greenwich, both sides of the river from the 
Hermitage, and from over against it. quite doAvn to Black- 
' A collective noun. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



119 



wall^ was entirely free ; there had not one person died of 
the plague in all Stepney parish, and not one on the south 
side of Whitechapel Eoad, no, not in any parish ; and 
yet the weekly bill was that very week risen up to 1006. 

It was a fortnight after this before the two brothers met 
again, and then the case was a little altered, and the plague 
was exceedingly advanced, and the number greatly in- 
creased. The bill was up at 2785, and prodigiously in- 
creasing ; though still both sides of the river, as below, 
kept pretty well. But some began to die in Redrilf, and 
about five or six in Ratclilf Highway, when the sail-maker 
came to his brother John, express/ and in some fright ; 
for he was absolutely warned out of his lodging, and had 
only a week to provide himself. His brother John was in 
as bad a case, for he was quite out ; and had only begged 
leave of his master, the biscuit-baker, to lodge in an out- 
house belonging to his workhouse, where he only lay ^ upon 
straw, with some biscuit-sacks, or bread-sacks, as they 
called them, laid upon it, and some of the same sacks to 
cover him. 

Here ^ they resolved, seeing all employment being ^ at an 
end, and no work or wages to be had, they would make 
the best of their way to get out of the reach of the dread- 
ful infection ; and being as good husbands ^ as they could, 
would endeavour to live upon what they had as long as it 
would last, and then work for more, if they could get 
work anywhere of any kind, let it be what it would. 

While they were considering to put this resolution in 
practice in the best manner they could, the third man, 
who was acquainted very well with the sail-maker, came to 
know of the design, and got leave to be one of the number : 
and thus they prepared to set out. 

It happened that they had not an equal share of money ; 
but as the sail-maker, who had the best stock, was, besides 
his being lame, the most unfit to expect to get anything by 

' For tliat particular purpose. Lay only. Then. 

^ Was. ^ See page 57, note 3, 



120 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



working in the country, so he "W^as content that what money 
they had should all go into one public stock, on condition 
that whatever any one of them could gain more than 
another, it should, without any grudging, be all added to 
the public stock. 

They resolved to load themselves with as little baggage 
as possible, because they resolved at first to travel on foot, 
and to go a great way, that they might, if possible, be 
eifectually safe. And a great many consultations they had 
with themselves before they could agree about what way 
they should travel, which they were so far from adjusting 
that, even to the morning they set out, they Avere not 
resolved on it. 

At last, the seaman put in a hint that determined it. 
" First," says he, " the weather is very hot, and, therefore, 
I am for travelling north, that we may not have the sun 
upon our faces and beating upon our breasts, wdiich will 
heat and suffocate us ; and I have been told,'"' says he, 
" that it is not good to overheat our blood at a time when, 
for aught we know, the infection may be in the very air. 
In the next place," says he, I am for going the way that 
may be contrary to the wind as it may blow when we set 
out, that we may not have the wind blow the air of the 
city on our backs as we go." These two cautions were 
approved of, if it could be brought so to hit^ that the 
wind might not be in the south when they set out to go 
north. 

John, the baker, who had been a soldier, then put in his 
opinion. " First," says he, " we none of us expect to get 
any lodging on the road, and it will be a little too hard to 
lie just in the open air ; though it may be warm weather, 
yet it may be wet and damp, and we have a double reason 
to take care of our healths at such a time as this ; and, 
therefore," says he, ^^you, brother Tom, that are a sail- 
maker, might easily make us a little tent, and I will under- 
take to set it up every night, and take it down, and a fig for 
^ To coincide. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 121 



all the inns in England ; if we have a good tent over our 
heads^ we shall do well enough/" 

The joiner opposed this, and told them, let them leave 
that to him ; he would undertake to build them a house 
every night with his hatchet and mallet, though he had no 
other tools, which should be fully to their satisfaction, and 
as good as a tent. 

The soldier and the joiner disputed that point some time, 
but at last the soldier carried it for a tent ; the only ob- 
jection against it was that it must be carried with them, 
and that would increase their baggage too much, the weather 
being hot. But the sail-maker had apiece of good hap ^ 
fell ^ in, which made that easy ; for his master, who ^ he 
worked for, having a rope-walk as well as"* sail-making 
trade, had a little j)oor horse that he made no use of then, 
and being willing to assist the three honest men, he gave 
them the horse for the carrying their baggage ; also, for a 
small matter of three days" work that his man did for him 
before he went, he let him have an old top-gallant sail that 
was worn out, but was sufficient, and more than enough, to 
make a very good tent. The soldier showed how to shape 
it, and they soon, by his direction, made their tent, and 
fitted it with poles or staves for the purpose, and thus they 
were furnished for their journey ; viz., three men, one tent, 
one horse, one gun for the soldier, who would not go with- 
out arms, for now he said he was no more a biscuit-baker, 
but a trooper. The joiner had a small bag of tools, such as 
might be useful, if he should get any work abroad,^ as well 
for their subsistence as his own. What money they had, 
they brought all into one public stock ; and thus they began 
their journey. It seems that in the morning when they set 
out, the wind blew, as the sailor said, by his pocket-com- 
pass, at^ N.W. by W. ; so they directed, or rather resolved 
to direct, their course A". AY. 

' Good fortune. - Fall. ■'Whom. ''As well as a. 

•' " Abroad " then ryieffilt (Hit of onfi's native place, i-ather than out of 
one's native country, The modern idiom omits "at." 



122 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



But then a difficulty came in their way, that as they set 
out from the hither end of Wapping, near the Hermitage, 
and that ^ the plague was now very violent, especially on the 
north side of the city, as in Shoreditch and Cripplegate 
parish, they did not think it safe for them to go near those 
parts ; so they went away east through Eatclilf Highway, 
as far as Eatclitf Cross, and leaving Stepney Church still 
on their left-hand, being afraid to come up from Ratcliff 
Cross to Mile End, because they must come just by the 
churchyard ; and because the wind, that seemed to blow 
more from the west, blowed directly from the side of the 
city where the plague was hottest. So, I say, leaving 
Stepney, they fetched a long compass,^ and going to Poplar 
and Bromley, came into the great road just at Bow. 

Here the watch placed upon Bow Bridge would have 
questioned them ; but they, crossing the road into a narrow 
way that turns out of the higher end of the town of Bow, 
to Oldford, avoided any inquiry there, and travelled on to 
Oldford. The constables everywhere were upon their 
guard, not so much, it seems, to stop people passing by, 
as to stop them from taking up their abode in their towns ; 
and, withal, because of a report that was newly raised at 
that time, and that indeed was not very improbable, viz., 
that the poor people in London, being distressed, and 
starved for want of work, and, by that means, for want of 
bread, were up in arms, and had raised a tumult, and that 
they would come out to all the towns round to plunder for 
bread. This, I say, was only a rumour, and it was very 
well it was no more ; but it was not so far otf from being a 
reality as it has been thought, for in a few weeks more the 
poor people became so desperate by the calamity they suf- 
fered, that they were with great difficulty kept from run- 
ning out into the fields and towns, and tearing all in pieces 
wherever they came ; and as I have observed before, noth- 
ing hindered them but that the plague raged so violently, 
and fell in upon them so furiously, that they rather went 
' As. - See AcU xxviii. 13. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



123 



to the grave by tliousciiids than into the fields in mobs by 
thousands ; for in the parts about the parishes of St. Sepul- 
chre's, Clerkenwell, Oripplegate, Bishopsgate, and Shore- 
ditch, which were the places where the mob began to 
threaten, the distemper came on so furiously that there died 
in those few parishes, even then, before the plague was 
come to its height, no less than 5361 people in the first 
three weeks in August, when, at the same time, the parts 
about Wapping, Eatcliff, and Rotherhithe were, as before 
described, hardly touched, or but very lightly ; so that in 
a word, though, as I said before, the good management of 
the lord mayor and justices did much to prevent the rage 
and desperation of the people from breaking out in rabbles 
and tumults, and, in short, from the poor plundering the 
rich ; I say, though they did much, the dead-cart did more, 
for, as I have said, that, in five parishes only, there died 
above 5000 in tiventy days, so there might be probably 
three times that number sick all that time, for some recov- 
ered, and great numbers fell sick every day, and died after- 
wards. Besides, I must still be allowed to say that, if the 
bills of mortality said five thousand, I always believed it was 
twice as many in reality, there being no room to believe 
that the account they gave was right, or that, indeed, they 
were, among such confusions as I saw them in, in any con- 
dition to keep an exact account. 

But to return to my travellers : — Here they were only ex- 
amined, and as they seemed rather coming from the country 
than from the city, they found the people easier with them ; 
that ^ they talked to them, let them come into a public- 
house where the constable and his warders were, and gave 
them drink and some victuals, which greatly refreshed and 
encouraged them ; and here it came into their heads to say, 
when they should be inquired of afterwards, not that they 
came from London, but that they came out of Essex. 

To forward this little fraud, they obtained so much 
favour of the constable at Oldford as to give tliem'^ a certi- 
' So that. That lie gave them. 



124 JOVRXAL OF THE PL AGUE 



llcate of their jiassiiig from Essex through that viUage, aud 
that thev had not been at Loudon : which, though false in 
the common acceptation of London in the country, vet was 
literally true : Wrapping or Ratcliff' being no part either of 
the city or liberty. 

This certificate, directed to the next constable, that was 
at Homerton, one of the hamlets of the j^arish of Hackney, 
was so serviceable to them that it procured them not a free 
passage there only, but a full certificate of health from a 
justice of the peace, who, upon the constable's application, 
granted it without much difficulty. And thus they passed 
through the long divided town of Hackney (for it lay then 
in several separated hamlets),, and travelled on till they 
came into the great north road, on the top of Stamford 
Hill. 

By this time they began to weary ; and so, in the back 
road ' from Hackney, a little before it ojDened into the said 
great road, they resolved to set up their tent, and encamp 
for the first night ; which they did accordingly, with this 
addition, that, finding a barn, or a building like a barn, 
and first searching as well as they could to be sure there 
was nobody in it, they set up their tent with the head of it 
against the barn ; this they did also because the wind blew 
that night very high, and they were but young at such a 
way of lodging, as well as at the managing their tent. 

Here they went to sleep : but the joiner, a grave and 
sober man, and not pleased with their lying at this loose 
rate 'the first night, could not sleep, and resolved, after 
trying it to no purpose, that he would get out. and taking 
the gun in his hand, stand sentinel, and guard his com- 
panions. So. with the gun in his hand, he walked to and 
again ^ before the barn, for that stood in the field near the 
road, but within ^ the hedge. He had not been long upon 
the scout ^ but'' he heard a noise of people coming on as 



' By-road. - In this careless fashion. 

^ On the inner side of. 

* Bat that he heard ; "before he heard. 



To and fro. 
^ The watch. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



125 



if it had been a great number, and they came on, as he 
thought, directly towards the barn. He did not presently ^ 
awake his companions, but in a few minutes more their 
noise growing louder and louder, the biscuit-baker called 
to him and asked him what was the matter, and quickly 
started out too. The other, being the lame sail-maker, and 
most weary, lay still in the tent. 

As they expected, so the people whom they had heard 
came on directly to the barn, when one of our travellers 
challenged, like soldiers upon the guard, with, ^^Who 
comes there?" The people did not answer immediately, 
but one of them speaking to another that was behind them, 
" Alas ! alas ! we are all disappointed," says he, "here are 
some people before us ; the barn is taken up." 

They all stopped upon that, as under some surprise ; and 
it seems there were about thirteen of them in all, and some 
women among them. They consulted together what they 
should do ; and by their discourse our travellers soon found 
they were poor distressed people, too, like themselves, seek- 
ing shelter and safety ; and, besides, our travellers had no 
need to be afraid of their coming up to disturb them, for 
as soon as they ^ heard the words, "Who comes there?" 
they^ could hear the women say, as if frightened, "Do not 
go near them ; how do you know but they may have the 
plague?" And when one of the men said, "Let us but 
speak to them," the women said, " ^^o, don^t by any means ; 
we have escaped thus far, by the goodness of Gfod ; do not 
let us run into danger now, we beseech you." 

Our travellers found by this that they were a good sober 
sort of people, and flying for their lives as they were ; and, 
as they were encouraged by it, so John said to the joiner, 
his comrade, " Let us encourage them too, as much as 
we can." 80 he called to them, " Hark ye, good people," 
says the joiner, "we fiiul by your talk that you are flying 
from tlie same dreadful enemy as we are : do not be afraid 
of us, we are oidy three poor men of us ; if you are free from 

' Immediately. '- The new company. ^ The three travellers. 



126 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



the distemj^er you shall not be hurt by us ^ we are uot in 
the barn, but in a little tent here on the outside, and we 
will remove for you ; we can set u}^ our tent again im- 
mediately anywhere else/^ And upon this a parley began 
between the joiner, whose name was Richard, and one of 
their men, whose said name was Ford. 

Ford. And do you assure us that you are all sound men ? 

Rich. Nay, we are concerned ^ to tell you of it, that you 
may not be uneasy, or think yourselves in danger ; but you 
see we do not desire you should put yourselves into any 
danger, and, therefore, I tell you that we have not made 
use of the barn, so we will remove from it that you may 
be safe and we also. 

Ford. That is very kind and charitable. But if we have 
reason to be satisfied that you are sound and free from the 
visitation, why should we make you remove, now you are 
settled in your lodging, and it may be are laid doT\ai to rest ? 
We will go into the barn, if you please, to rest ourselves a 
while, and we need not disturb you. 

Rich. Well, but you are more than we are ; I hope you 
will assure us that you are all of you sound too, for the 
danger is as great from you to us, as from us to you. 

Ford. Blessed be God that some do escape, though it be 
but few ; what may be our portion still, we know not, but 
hitherto we are preserved. 

Rich. What part of the town do you come from ? Was 
the plague come to the places where you lived ? 

Ford. Ay, ay, in a most frightful and terrible manner, 
or else we had not fled away as we do ; but we believe there 
will be very few left alive behind us. 

Rich. What part do you come from ? 

Ford. AVe are most of us from Cripplegate parish, only 
two or three of Clerkenwell parish, but on the hither ^ side. 

Rich. How, then, was it that you came away no sooner ? 

Ford. We have been away some time, and kept together 

' Are anxious. - On this side. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAQUE 



127 



as well as we could at the hither end of Islington, where we 
got leave to lie in an old uninhabited house, and had some 
bedding and conveniences of our own that we brought with 
us ; but the plague is come up into Islington too, and a 
house next door to our poor dwelling was infected and shut 
up, and we are come away in a fright. 

Rich. And what Avay are you going ? 

Ford. As our lot shall cast us, we know not whither ; 
but God will guide those that look up to him. 

They parleyed no farther at that time, but came all up to 
the barn, and with some difficulty got into it. There was 
nothing but hay in the barn, but it was almost full of that, 
and they accommodated themselves as well as they could, 
and went to rest ; but our travellers observed that, before 
they went to sleep, an ancient man, who, it seems, was the 
father of one of the women, went to prayer with all the 
company, recommending themselves to the blessing and 
protection of providence before they went to sleep. 

It was soon day at that time of the year ; and as Richard, 
the joiner, had kept guard the first part of the night, so 
John, the soldier, relieved him, and he had the post in the 
morning, and they ^ began to be acquainted with one an- 
other. It seems, when they left Islington, they intended 
to have gone north a way to Highgate, but were stopped at 
Holloway, and there they would not let them pass ; so they 
crossed over the fields and hills to the eastward, and came 
out at the Boarded River, and so, avoiding the towns, they 
left Hornsey on the left hand, and Newington on the right 
hand, and came into the great road about Stamford Hill on 
that side, as the three travellers had done on the other side. 
And now they had thoughts of going over the river in the 
marshes, and make ^ forwards to Epping Forest, where 
they hoped they should get leave to rest. It seems they 
were not poor, at least not so poor as to be in want : at 
least, they had enough to subsist them^ moderately for two 

' John and the new people. - Making. 

^ For them to subsist on. 



128 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



or three months, when, as they said, they were m hopes 
the cold weather would check the infection, or at least the 
violence of it would have spent itself ; and would abate, if 
it were only for want of people left alive to be infected. 

This was much the fate of our three travellers ; only that 
they seemed to be the better furnished for travelling, and 
had it in their view to go farther off ; for as to the first, 
they did not propose to go farther than one day's journey, 
that so they might have intelligence every two or three 
days how things were at London. 

But here our travellers found themselves under an un- 
expected inconvenience, namely, that of their horse ; for, 
by means of the horse to carry their baggage, they were 
obliged to keep in the road, whereas the people of this 
other band went over the fields or roads, path or no path, 
way or no way, as they pleased ; neither had they any oc- 
casion to pass through any town, or come near any town, 
other than to buy such things as they wanted for their nec- 
essary subsistence, and in that, indeed, they were put to 
much difficulty : of which in its place. 

But our three travellers were obliged to keep the road, 
or else they must commit spoil, and do the country a great 
deal of damage, in breaking doAvn fences and gates, to ^ go 
over inclosed fields, which they were loath to do if they 
could help it. 

Our three travellers, however, had a great mind to join 
themselves to this company, and take their lot with them ; 
and, after some discourse, they laid aside their first design, 
which looked northward, and resolved to follow the other 
into Essex ; so in the morning they took up their tent and 
loaded their horse, and away they travelled all together. 

They had some difficulty in passing tlie ferry at the river- 
side, the ferryman being afraid of them ; but, after some 
parley at a distance, the ferryman was content to bring his 
boat to a place distant from the usual ferry, and leave it 
there for them to take it ; so, putting themselves over, he 

' Til order to. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



129 



directed them to leave the boat^ and he^, having another 
boat^ said he would fetch it again ; which it seems, how- 
ever, he did not do for above eight days. 

Here, giving the ferryman money beforehand, they had a 
suj)ply of victuals and drink, which he brought and left 
in the boat for them, but not without, as I said, having 
received the money beforehand. But now our travellers 
were at a great loss and difficulty how to get the horse 
over, the boat being small and not fit for it ; and at last 
could not do it without unloading the baggage and making 
him swim over. 

From the river they travelled towards the forest ; but 
when they came to Walthamstow, the people of that town 
denied ^ to admit them, as was the case everywhere ; the 
constables and their watchmen kept them off at a distance, 
and parleyed with them. They gave the same account of 
themselves as before, but these gave no credit to what they 
said, giving it for a reason, that two or three companies 
had already come that way and made the like pretences, but 
that they had given several people the distemper in the 
towns where they had passed, and had been afterwards so 
hardly used by the country, though with justice too, as 
they had deserved, that, about Brentwood or that way, 
several of them perished in the fields ; whether of the 
plague or of mere want and distress, they could not tell. 

This was a good reason, indeed, why the people of Wal- 
thamstow should be very cautious, and why they should re- 
solve not to entertain anybody that they were not well 
satisfied of ; but, as Richard, the joiner, and one of the 
other men, who parleyed with them, told them, it was no 
reason why they should block up the roads, and refuse to 
let the people pass through the town, and^ who asked 
nothing of them but to go through the street ; that, if 
their people were afraid of them, they might go into their 
houses and shut their doors ; they would neither show 
them civility nor incivility, but go on about their business. 

' Refused. '■^ " And " is unnecessary. 

9 



130 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAOVE 



The constables and attendants, not to be persuaded by 
reason, continued obstinate, and would hearken to nothing, 
so the two men that talked with them went back to their 
fellows, to consult what was to be done. It was very dis- 
couraging in ^ the whole, and they knew not what to do 
for a good while ; but, at last, John, the soldier and bis- 
cuit-baker, considering awhile, ^'^ Come, says he, leave 
the rest of the parley to m.Q." He had not appeared yet ; ^ so 
he sets the joiner Richard to work to cut some poles out 
of the trees, and shape them as like guns as he could, and, 
in a little time, he had five or six fair muskets, which at a 
distance would not be known ; and about the part where 
the lock of a gun is, he caused them to wrap cloth and 
rags, such as they had, as soldiers do in wet weather to 
preserve the locks of their pieces from rust ; the rest was 
discoloured with clay or mud, such as they could get ; and 
all this while the rest of them sat under the trees by his 
direction, in two or three bodies, where they made fires at 
a good distance from one another. 

While this was doing, he advanced himself, and two or 
three with him, and set up their tent in the lane, within 
sight of the barrier which the townsmen had made, and 
set a sentinel just by it with the real gun, the only one 
they had, and ^ who walked to and fro with the gun on his 
shoulder, so as that the people of the town might see 
them ; ^ also he tied the horse to a gate in the hedge just 
by, and got some dry sticks together, and kindled a fire on 
the other side of the tent, so that the people of the town 
could see the fire and the smoke, but could not see what 
they were doing at it. 

After the country people had looked upon them very 
earnestly a great while, and by all that they could see, could 
not but suppose that they v/ere a great many in company, 
they began to be uneasy, not for ^ their going away, but for 

'On. 

^Tliat is, lie had not yet shown liimself to the people of the town. 
' " And " is unnecessary. Himself and his party. In regard to. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



131 



staying * where they were : and above all, perceiving they 
had horses and arms, for they had seen one horse and one 
gun at the tent, and they had seen others of them walk 
about the field on the inside of the hedge by the side of the 
lane with their muskets, as they took them to be, shouldered; 
I say, upon such a sight as this, you may be assured they 
were alarmed and terribly frightened ; and it seems they 
went to a justice of the peace, to know what they should 
do. AVhat the justice advised them to ^ I know not, but 
towards the evening, they called from the barrier, as above, 
to the sentinel at the tent. 

" What do you want ? says John. 

" Why, what do you intend to do ? " says the constable. 
" To do,"^ says John ; " what would you have us to do ? " 
Const. Why don^t you be gone ? AVhat do you stay there 
for ? 

John. Why do you stop us on the king's highway, and 
pretend to refuse us leave to go on our way ? 

Const. We are not bound to tell you the reason, though 
we did let you know it was because of the plague. 

Johji. We told you we were all sound and free from the 
plague, which we were not bound to have satisfied you of ; 
and yet you pretend to sto}) us on the highway. 

Const. We have a right to stop it up, and our own safety 
obliges us to it ; besides, this is not the king's highway, it 
is a way upon sufferance. You see here is a gate, and, if 
we do let people pass here, we make them pay toll. 

John. We have a right to seek our own safety as well 
as you, and you may see we are flying for our lives, and it 
is very unchristian and unjust in you to stop us. 

Const. You may go back from whence you came ; we do 
not hinder you from that. 

John. No, it is a stronger enemy than you that keeps 
us from doing that, or else we should not have come hither. 

Const. Well, you may go any othei- way then. 

John. No, no ; I suppose you see we are able to send 
' Their staying. 2 To do. 



132 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



you going iincl all the people of your parish, and come 
through your town when we will, but, since you have stopt 
us here, we are content ; 3^ou see we have encamped here, 
and here we will live ; we hope you will furnish us with 
victuals. 

Const. We furnish you ! What mean you by that ? 

John. Why, you would not have us starve, would you ? 
If you stop us here you must keep us. 

Const. You will be ill kept at our maintenance. 

John. If you stint us, we shall make ourselves the better 
allowance. 

Const. Why, you will not pretend to quarter upon us by 
force, will you ? 

John. We have offered no violence to you yet, why do 
you seem to oblige us to it ? I am an old soldier and cannot 
starve ; and if you think that we shall be obliged to go back 
for want of provisions, you are mistaken. 

Const. Since you threaten us, we shall take care to be 
strong enough for you. I have orders to raise the county 
upon you. 

John. It is you that threaten, not we ; and, since you are 
for mischief, you cannot blame us if we do not give you time 
for it. We shall begin our march in a few minutes. 

Const. What is it you demand of us ? 

John. At first we desired nothing of you but leave to go 
through the town. AVe should have offered no injury to 
any of you, neither would you have had any injury or loss 
by us ; we are not thieves, but poor people in distress, and 
flying from the dreadful plague in London, which devours 
thousands every week. We wonder how you can be so un- 
merciful ! 

Const. Self-preservation obliges us. 

John. What ! To shut up your compassion in a case of 
such distress as this ? 

Const. Well, if you will pass over the fields on your left 
hand, and behind tliat j)ai't of the towii, I will endeavour 
to have gates opened for you. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



133 



Jolni. Our horsemen cannot pass with our haggage that 
way ; it does not lead into the road that we want to go, 
and why shoukl you force us out of the road ? Besides, 
you have kept us here all day without any provisions but 
such as we brought with us ; I think you ought to send us 
some provisions for our relief. 

Comt. If you will go another way, we will send you 
some provisions. 

Jolm. That is the way to have all the towns in the 
county stop up the ways against us. 

Const. If they all furnish you with food, what will you 
be the worse ? I see you have tents ; you want no lodging. 

John. Well ; what quantity of provisions will you send 
us ? 

Const. How many are you ? 

John. Nay, we do not ask enough for all our company ; 
we are in three companies ; if you will send us bread for 
twenty men and about six or seven women for three days, 
and show us the way over the field you speak of, we desire 
not to put your people into any fear for us ; we will go out 
of our way to oblige you, though we are as free from infec- 
tion as you are. 

Const. And will you assure us that your other people 
shall offer us no new disturbance ? 

John. No, no ; you may depend on it. 

Const. You must oblige yourself ^ too, that none of your 
people shall come a step nearer than where the provisions 
we send you shall be set down. 

Johii, I answer for it we will not. 

Here he called to one of his men, and bade him order 
Oapt. Richard and his people to march the lower way on 
the side of the marshes, and meet them in the forest ; 
which was all a sham, for they had no Capt. Eichard or 
any such company. 

Accordingly, they^ sent to the place twenty loaves of 

' IMake yourself i <'spoiisil)lc. ^ Tlie people of tlic town. 



134 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



bread and three or four large pieces of good beef^ and 
opened some gates, through which they passed, but none 
of them had courage so much as to look out to see them 
go ; and, as it was evening, if they had looked, they could 
not have seen them so as to know how few they were. 

This was John the soldier's management ; but this gave 
such an alarm to the county that, had they really been two 
or three hundred, the whole county would have been raised 
upon them, and they would have been sent to prison, or 
perhaps knocked on the head. 

They were soon made sensible of this ; for two days af- 
terwards they found several parties of horsemen and foot- 
men also about, in pursuit of three companies of men 
armed, as they said, with muskets, who were broke out 
from London and had the plague upon them ; and that 
were not only spreading the distemper among the people, 
but plundering the country. 

As they saw now the consequence of their case, they 
soon saw the danger they were in ; so they resolved, by the 
advice also of the old soldier, to divide themselves again. 
John and his two comrades with the horse went away as if 
towards Waltham ; the other in two companies, but all a 
little asunder, 1 and went towards Epping. 

The first night they encamped all in the forest, and not 
far off from one another, but not setting up the tent for 
fear that should discover them. On the other hand, Rich- 
ard went to work with his axe and his hatchet, and, cut- 
ting down branches of trees, he built three tents or hovels, 
in which they all encamped with as much convenience as 
they could expect. 

The provisions they had at AYalthamstow served them 
very plentifully this night, and as for the next they left it 
to providence. They had fared so well with the old sol- 
dier's conduct that they now willingly made him their 
leader, and the first of his conduct appeared to be very 
good, lie told them that they were now at a projK'r dis- 
' A short distance from each other. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



135 



tance enough from London ; that, as they need not be 
immediately beholden to the country for relief, they ought 
to be as careful the country did not infect them, as that 
they did not infect the country ; that what little money 
they had they must be as frugal of as they could ; that as 
he would not have them think of offering the country any 
violence, so they must endeavour to make the sense of 
their condition go as far with the country as it could. 
They all referred themselves to his direction ; so they left 
their three houses standing, and the next day went away 
towards Epping ; the captain also, for so they now called 
him, and his two fellow-travellers, laid aside their design of 
going to Waltham, and all went together. 

When they came near Epping, they halted, choosing out 
a proper place in the open forest, not very near the high- 
way but not far out of it, on the north side, under a little 
cluster of low pollard trees. Here they pitched their little 
camp, which consisted of three large tents or huts made of 
poles, which their carpenter, and such as were his assist- 
ants, cut down and fixed in the ground in a circle, bind- 
ing all the small ends together at the top, and thickening 
the sides with boughs of trees and bushes, so that they 
were completely close and warm. They had besides this 
a little tent where the women lay by themselves, and a hut 
to put the horse in. 

It happened, that the next day, or the next but one, was 
market-day at Epping, when Captain John and one of the 
other men went to market, and bought some provisions, that 
is to say, bread, and some mutton and beef ; and two of the 
women went separately, as if they had not belonged to the 
rest, and bought more. John took the horse to bring it 
home, and the sack, which the carpenter carried his tools in, 
to put it in ; the carpenter went to work, and made them 
benches and stools to sit on, such as the wood he could get 
would afford, and a kind of a table to dine on. 

They were taken no notice of for two or three days, but 
after that abundance of people ran out of the town to look 



136 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



at them, and all the country was alarmed about them. 
The people at first seemed afraid to come near them ; and, 
on the other hand, they desired the people to keep off, for 
there was a rumour that the plague was at Waltham, and 
that it had been in Epping two or three days ; so John 
called out to them not to come to them. ^^For/^ says he, 
" we are all whole and sound people here, and we would not 
have you bring the plague among us, nor pretend we brought 
it among you/^ 

After this the parish officers came up to them, and par- 
leyed with them at a distance, and desired to know who 
they were, and by what authority they pretended to fix 
their stand at that place. John answered very frankly, 
they were poor distressed people from London, who, fore- 
seeing the misery they should be reduced to, if the plague 
spread into the city, had fled out in time for their lives, 
and, having no acquaintance or relations to fly to, had first 
taken up at Islington, but, the plague being come into that 
town, were fled farther, and, as they su|)posed that the peo- 
ple of Epping might have refused them coming into their 
town, they had pitched their tents thus in the open field, 
and in the forest, being willing to bear all the hardships of 
such a disconsolate lodging, rather than have any one 
think, or be afraid, that they should receive injury by 
them. 

At first the Epping people talked roughly to them, and 
told them they must remove ; that this was no place for 
them ; and that they pretended to be sound and well, but 
that they might be infected with the plague for aught they 
knew, and might infect the whole country, and they could 
not suffer them there. 

John argued very calmly with them a great while, and 
told them that London was the place by which they, that 
is, the townsmen of Epping and all the country round 
them, subsisted, to whom they sold the produce of their 
lands, and out of whom they made the rents of their farms ; 
and to be so cruel to the inhabitants of London, or to any 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



137 



of those by whom they gained so much, was very hard ; and 
they would be loath to have it remembered hereafter, and 
have it told, how barbarous, how inhospitable, and how 
unkind they were to the people of London, when they fled 
from the face of the most terrible enemy in the world : that 
it would be enough to make the name of an Epping man 
hateful throughout all the city, and to have the rabble 
stone them in the very streets, whenever they came so much 
as to market ; that they were not yet secure from being 
visited themselves, and that, as he heard, Waltham was al- 
ready ; that they would think it very hard, that when any 
of them fled for fear before they were touched, they should 
be denied the liberty of lying so much as in the open 
fields. 

The Epping men told them again, that they, indeed, said 
they were sound and free from the infection, but that they 
had no assurance of it ; and that it was reported that there 
had been a great rabble of people at Walthamstow, who 
made such pretences of being sound as they did, but that 
they threatened to plunder the town, and force their way 
whether the parish officers would or no ; that there were 
near two hundred of them, and had arms and tents like 
Low Country soldiers ! that they extorted provisions from 
the town, by threatening them with living upon them at 
free quarter,^ showing their arms, and talking in the lan- 
guage of soldiers ; and that several of them having gone 
away towards Rumford and Brentwood, the country had 
been infected by them, and the plague spread into both 
those large towns, so that the people durst not go to mar- 
ket there as usual ; that it was very likely they were some 
of that party ; and if so, they deserved to be sent to the 
county gaol, and be secured till they had made satisfaction 
for the damage they had done, and for the terror and fright 
they had put the country into. 

Joliii answered, that what other people had done was 
notliing to them ; that they assured them they were all of 
' Quartering themselves on the town without pay. 



138 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



one company ; that they had never been more in number 
than they saw them at that time (which by the way, Avas 
very true) ; that they came out in two separate companies, 
but joined by the way, their cases being the same ; that 
they were ready to give what account of themselves any- 
body desired of them, and to give in their names and 
places of abode, that so they might be called to an account 
for any disorder that they might be guilty of ; that the 
townsmen might see they were content to live hardly, and 
only desired a little room to breathe in on ^ the forest, 
where it was wholesome ; for where it was not, they could 
not stay, and would decamp if they found it otherwise 
there. 

" But,^" said the townsmen, ^'^we have a great charge of 
poor upon our hands already, and we must take care not 
to increase it ; we suppose you can give us no security 
against your being chargeable to our parish and to the in- 
habitants, any more than you can of being dangerous to us 
as to the infection/' 

'MVhy, look you,'' says John, ^^as to being chargeable 
to you, we hope we shall not ; if you will relieve us with 
provisions for our present necessity, we will be very thank- 
ful ; as we all lived without charity when we were at home, 
so we will oblige ourselves fully to repay you, if God please 
to bring us back to our own families and houses in safety, 
and to restore health to the people of London. 

" As to our dying here, we assure you, if any of us die, 
we that survive will bury them, and put you to no ex- 
pense, except it should be that we should all die, and 
then, indeed, the last man, not being able to bury himself, 
would put you to that single expense, which, I am per- 
suaded," says John, " he would leave enough behind him 
to pay you for the expense of. 

" On the other hand," says John, if you will shut up 
all bowels of compassion, and not relieve us at all, we shall 
not extort anything by violence, or steal from any one ; 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



139 



but when that little we have is spent, if we perish for 
want, CtocVs will be clone. 

John wrought so upon the townsmen, by talking thus 
rationally and smoothly to them, that they went away ; 
and though they did not give any consent to their staying 
there, yet they did not molest them, and the poor people 
continued there three or four days longer without any dis- 
turbance. In this time they had got some remote acquaint- 
ance with a victualling-house on the outskirts of the town, 
to whom they called, at a distance, to bring some little 
things that they wanted, and which they caused to be set 
down at some distance, and always paid for very hon- 
estly. 

During this time, the younger people of the town came 
frequently pretty near them, and would stand and look at 
them, and would sometimes talk with them at some space 
between ; and particularly it was observed that the first 
Sabbath-day the poor people kept retired,^ worshipped 
God together, and were heard to sing psalms. 

These things, and a quiet inoffensive behaviour, began 
to get them the good opinion of the country, and the peo- 
ple began to pity them and speak very well of them ; the 
consequence of which was, that, upon the occasion of a 
very wet rainy night, a certain gentleman, who lived in 
the neighbourhood, sent them a little cart with twelve 
trusses or bundles of straw, as well for them to lodge upon 
as to cover and thatch their huts, and to keep them dry. 
The minister of a parish not far off, not knowing of the 
other, sent them also about two bushels of wheat and half 
a bushel of white peas. 

They were very thankful, to be sure, for this relief, and 
particularly the straw was a very great comfort to them ; 
for, though the ingenious carpenter had made them frames 
to lie in, like troughs, and filled them with leaves of trees 
and such things as they could get, and had cut all their 
tent-cloth out to make coverlids, yet they lay damp and 
' In retirement ; quietly. 



140 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



hard, and unwholesome till this straw came, which was to 
them like feather-beds ; and, as John said, more welcome 
than feather-beds would have been at another time. 

This gentleman and the minister having thus begun, and 
given an example of charity to these wanderers, others 
quickl}^ followed, and they received every day some benev- 
olence or other from the people, but chiefly from the 
gentlemen who dwelt in the country round about : some 
sent them chairs, stools, tables, and such household things 
as they gave notice they wanted ; some sent them blankets, 
rugs, and coverlids ; some earthen ware, and some kitchen 
w^are for ordering ^ their food. 

Encouraged by this good usage, their carpenter, in a few 
days, built them a large shed or house with rafters, and a 
roof in form, and an upj^er floor, in which they lodged 
warm, for the weather began to be damp and cold in the 
beginning of September ; but this house, being very Aveli 
thatched, and the sides and roof very thick, kept out the 
cold well enough ; he made also an earthern wall at one 
end, with a chimney in it ; and another of the company, 
with a vast deal of trouble and pains, made a funnel to the 
chimney to carry out the smoke. 

Here they lived comfortably, though coarsely, till the 
beginning of September, when they had the bad news to 
hear, whether true or not, that the plague, which was very 
hot at Waltham Abbey on tlie one side, and Rumford and 
Brentwood on the other side, was also come to Epping, to 
AVoodford., and to most of the towns upon the forest ; and 
which, as they said, was brought down among them chiefly 
by the higglers,^ and such people as went to and from 
London with provisions. 

If this was true, it was an evident contradiction to the 
report which was afterwards spread all over England, but, 
which, as I have said, I cannot confirm of my own knowl- 
edge, namely, that the nuirket ^^eople, carrying i)rovisions 
' Preparing. 2 Hucksters. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



141 



to the city^ never got the infection^ or carried it back into 
the country ; both which, I have been assured, has been ^ 
false. 

It might be that they ^ were preserved even beyond ex- 
pectation, though not to a miracle ; ^ that abundance went 
and came and were not touched, and that Avas much en- 
couragement for the poor people of London, who had been ^ 
completely miserable if the people that brought pro- 
visions to the markets had not been many times wonder- 
fully preserved, or at least more preserved than could 
be reasonably expected. 

But these new inmates began to be disturbed more 
effectually ; for the towns about them were really infected, 
and they began to be afraid to trust one another so much 
as to go abroad for such things as they wanted, and this 
pinched them very hard, for now they had little or nothing 
but what the charitable gentlemen of the country supplied 
them with ; but, for their encouragement, it happened 
that other gentlemen of the country, who had not sent 
them anything before, began to hear of them and supply 
them ; and one sent them a large pig, that is to say, a 
porker ; ^ another two sheep, and another sent them a 
calf ; in short, they had meat enough, and sometimes had 
cheese and milk, and such things. They were chiefly put 
to it for bread, for when the gentlemen sent them corn, 
they had nowhere to bake it or to grind it ; this made 
them eat the first two bushels of wheat that was sent them, 
in parched corn, as the Israelites of old did, without grind- 
ing or making bread of it. 

At last they found means to carry their corn to a wind- 
mill, near Woodford, where they had it ground ; and 
afterwards the biscuit-baker made a hearth so hollow and 
dry that he could bake biscuit-cakes tolerably well; and thus 
they came into a condition to live without any assistance or 

1 Have been ; were. The market people. 

3 So far as to amount to a miracle. ' Would have been. 

sFat enough to kill. 



142 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



supplies from the towns ; and it was well they did, for the 
country was soon after fully infected, and about a hundred 
and twenty were said to have died of the distemper in the 
villages near them, Avhich was a terrible thing to them. 

On this they called a new council, and now the towns 
had no need to be afraid they should settle near them ; 
but, on the contrary, several families of the poorer sort of 
the inhabitants quitted their houses and built huts in the 
forest, after the same manner as they had done. But it 
was observed, that several of these poor people that had so 
removed had the sickness even in their huts or booths ; 
the reason of which was plain, namely, not because they 
removed into the air, but because they did not remove 
time ^ enough; that is to say, not till by openly conversing 
with other people, their neighbours, they had the dis- 
temper upon them, or, as may be said, among them, and 
so carried it about with them whither they went. Or, (2) 
because ^ they were not careful enough, after they were 
safely removed out of the towns, not to come in again and 
mingle with the diseased people. 

But be it which of these it will, when our travellers 
began to perceive that the plague was not only in the 
towns but even in the tents and huts on the forest near 
them, they began then not only to be afraid, but to think 
of decamping and removing ; for, had they stayed, they 
would have been in manifest danger of their lives. 

It is not to be wondered that they were greatly afflicted 
at being obliged to quit the place where they had been so 
kindly received, and where they had been treated with so 
much humanity and charity ; but necessity, and the hazard 
of life, which they came out so far to preserve, prevailed 
with them, and they saw no remedy. John, however, 
thought of a remedy for their present misfortune, namely, 
that he would first acquaint that gentleman who was their 

^ lu time. 

a The following should strictly he a part of the preceding sen- 
tence. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



143 



principal benefactor with the distress they were in ; and 
^to crave his assistance and advice. 

This good charitable gentleman encouraged them to quit 
the place, for fear they should be cut off from any retreat 
at all, by the violence of the distemper ; but whither they 
should go, that he found very hard to direct them to. At 
last John asked of him whether he, being a justice of the 
peace, would give them certificates of health to other jus- 
tices who ^ they might come before, that so, whatever might 
be their lot, they might not be repulsed now they had been 
also so long from London. This his worship immediately 
granted, and gave them proper letters of health ; and from 
thence they were at liberty to travel whither they pleased. 

Accordingly, they had a full certificate of health, inti- 
mating that they had resided in a village in the county of 
Essex so long ; ^ that being examined and scrutinized suffi- 
ciently, and having been retired from all conversation ^ for 
above forty days, without any appearance of sickness, they 
were, therefore, certainly concluded to be sound men, 
and might be safely entertained anywhere ; having at last 
removed rather for fear of the plague, which was come into 
such a town, rather ^ than for having any signal of infection 
upon thertt, or upon any belonging to them. 

With this certificate they removed, though with great 
reluctance ; and John inclining not to go far from home, 
they removed toward the marshes on the side of Waltham. 
But here they found a man who, it seems, kept a weir or 
stop ^ upon the river, made to raise water for the barges 
which go up and down the river, and he terrified them with 
dismal stories of the sickness having been spread into all the 
towns on the river, and near the river, on the side of Middle- 
sex and Hertfordshire ; that is to say, into Waltham, Wal- 
tham Cross, Enfield, and Ware, and . all the towns on the 
road, that they were afraid to go that way ; though, it seems, 

' Would. 2 Whom. ^For such-and-such a time. 

^Intercourse. ''An unnecessary repetition. 

° A sort of lock. 



144 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



the man imposed upon them, for that ^ the thing was not 
really true. 

However, it terrified them, and they resolved to move 
across the forest towards Rumford and Brentwood ; but 
they heard that there were numbers of people fled out of 
London that way, who lay up and down in the forest reach- 
ing near Rumford ; and who, having no subsistence or habi- 
tation, not only lived oddly,^ and suffered great extremities 
in the woods and fields for want of relief, but were said to be 
made so desperate by those extremities as that they offered 
many violences to the country, robbed, and plundered, and 
killed cattle, and the like : and others, building huts and 
hovels by the road-side, begged, and that with an impor- 
tunity next door to demanding relief : so that the country 
was very uneasy, and had been obliged to take some of 
them up. 

This, in the first place, intimated to them that they 
would be sure to find the charity and kindness of the 
county, which they had found here where they were be- 
fore, hardened and shut up against them : and that, on 
the other hand, they would be questioned wherever they 
came, and would be in danger of violence from others in 
like cases with themselves. 

Upon all these considerations, John, their captain, in all 
their names, went back to their good friend and benefactor 
who had relieved them before, and laying their case truly 
before him, humbly asked his advice ; and he as kindly 
advised them to take up their old quarters again, or, if not, 
to remove but a little farther out of the road, and directed 
them to a proper place for them ; and as they really wanted 
some house, rather than huts, to shelter them at that time 
of the year, it growing on towards Michaelmas, they found 
an old decayed house, which had been formerly some cot- 
tage or little habitation, but was so out of repair as ^ scarce 
habitable ; and by consent of a farmer, to whose farm it 
belonged, they got leave to make what use of it thev could. 

' For. Probably, from baud to mouth. ^ 



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The ingeuions joiiiei% and all tlie rest by his directions, 
went to work with it^ and in a very few days made it ca- 
pable to shelter them all, in case of bad weather ; and in 
which there was an old chimney and an old oven, though 
both lying in ruins, yet they made them both fit for use : 
and raising additions, sheds, and lean-to's on every side, 
they soon made the house capable to hold them all. 

They chiefly wanted boards to make window-shutters, 
floors, doors, and several other things : but as the gentle- 
man above ^ favoured them, and the country was by that 
means made easy with them ; and, above all, that ^ they 
were known to be all sound and in good health, every- 
body helped them with what they could spare. 

Here they encamped for good and all, and resolved to 
remove no more ; they saw plainly how terribly alarmed 
that country was everywhere at anybody that came from 
London ; and that they should have no admittance any- 
where but with the utmost difficulty, at least no friendly 
reception and assistance as they had received here. 

Now although they received great assistance and en- 
couragement from the country gentlemen, and from the 
people round about them, yet they were put to great straits, 
for the weather grew cold and wet in October and Novem- 
ber, and they had not been used to so much hardship ; so 
that they got cold in their limbs and distempers, but never 
had the infection. And thus, about December, they came 
home to the city again. 

I give this story thus at large,^ principally to give an ac- 
count what ^ became of the great numbers of people which 
immediately appeared in the city as soon as the sickness 
abated ; for, as I have said, great numbers of those that 
were able, and had retreats in the country, fled to those re- 
treats. So when it was increased to such a frightful ex- 
tremity as I have related, the middling people ^ who had 

' Mentioned above. '^As. ^ At length. 

^ Of what. " People of the middle class. 

10 



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not friends fled to all parts of the country where they could 
get shelter, as well those that had money to relieve them- 
selves as those that had not. Those that had money always 
fled furthest, because they were able to subsist themselves ; ^ 
but those who were empty, suffered, as I have said, great 
hardships, and were often driven by necessity to relieve 
their wants at the expense of the country. By that means 
the country was made very uneasy at them, and sometimes 
took them up, though even then they scarce knew what 
to do with them, and were always very backward to punish 
them ; but, often too, they forced them from place to place, 
till they Avere obliged to come back again to London. 

I have, since my knowing this story of John and his 
brother, inquired and found that there were a great many 
of the poor disconsolate people, as above, fled ^ into the 
country every way ;^ and some of them got little sheds, and 
barns, and outhouses to live in, where they could obtain so 
much kindness of the country ; and especially where they 
had any the least satisfactory account to give of them- 
selves, and particularly that they did ^ not come out of Lon- 
don too late.^ But others, and that in great numbers, built 
themselves little huts and retreats in the fields and woods, 
and lived like hermits, in holes and caves, or any place they 
could find ; and where, we may be sure, they sutfered great 
extremities, such that many of them were obliged to come 
back again, whatever the danger was ; and so those little 
huts were often found empty, and the country people sup- 
posed the inhabitants lay dead in them of the plague, and 
would not go near them for fear, no, not in a great while ; 
nor is it unlikely but that some of the unhappy wanderers 
might die so all alone, even sometimes for want of help, as 
particularly in one tent or hut was found a man dead ; and, 
on the gate of a field just by, was cut with his knife in un- 
even letters the following Avords, by which it may be sup- 

1 By themselves. ^ ^yj^^ flg^ 3 jjj every direction. 

4 Any, even tlie least. ^ Had. Very recently. 

' Unlikely that. 



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posed tlie other man escaped^ or that one dying first, the 
other buried him as well as he could : 

OmIsErY! 
We Bo T H Sh a L L D y E, 
W 0 E, W o E 

I have given an account already of what I found to have 
been the case down the river among the seafaring men^ how 
the ships lay in the offings as it is called^ in rows or lines, 
astern of one another, quite down from the Pool as far as I 
could see. I have been told that they lay in the same man- 
ner quite down the river as low as Grravesend, and some far 
beyond, even everywhere, or in every place where they could 
ride with safety as to wind and weather ; nor did I ever 
hear that the plague reached to any of the people on board 
those ships^ except such as lay up in the Pool, or as high 
as Deptford Eeach, although the people went frequently 
on shore to the country towns and villages, and farmers^ 
houses, to buy fresh provisions, fowls, pigs, calves, and the 
like, for their supply. 

Likewise, I found that the watermen on the river above 
the bridge found means to convey themselves away up the 
river as far as they could go ; and that they had, many of 
them, their whole families in their boats, covered with tilts ^ 
and bales,^ as they call them, and furnished with straw 
within for their lodging ; and that they lay thus all along 
by the shore in the marshes, some of them setting up little 
tents with their sails, and so lying under them on shore 
in the day, and going into their boats at night ; and in this 
manner, as I have heard, the river sides were lined with 
boats and people as long as they had anything to subsist on, 
or could get anything of the country ; and, indeed, the 
country people, as well gentlemen as others, on these and 
all other occasions, were very forward^ to relieve them, but 
' Awnings. 

Hoops for supporting a large covering, like that of a wagon. 
^ Ready. 



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they were by no means willing to receive tliem into their 
towns and houses, and for that we cannot blame them. 

There was one unhappy citizen, within my knowledge, 
who had been visited in a dreadful manner, so that his wife 
and all his children were dead, and himself and two ser- 
vants only left, with an elderly woman, a near relation, 
who had nursed those that were dead as w^ell as she could. 
This disconsolate man goes to a village near the town, 
though not within the bills of mortality,^ and finding an 
empty house there, inquires out the owner, and took the 
house. After a few days, he got a cart, and loaded it with 
goods, and carries them down to the house ; the people of 
the village opposed his driving the cart along, but with 
some arguings, and some force, the men that drove the cart 
along got through the street up to the door of the house ; 
there the constable resisted them again, and would not let 
them be brought in. The man caused the goods to be un- 
loaded and laid at the door, and sent the cart away, upon 
which they carried the man before a justice of peace ; that 
is to say, they commanded him to go, which he did. The 
justice ordered him to cause the cart to fetch away the 
goods again, which he refused to do ; upon which the jus- 
tice ordered the constable to pursue the carters and fetch 
them back, and make them reload the goods and carry 
them away, or to set them in the stocks till they came ^ for 
further orders ; and if they could not find them, and the 
man would not consent to take them ^ away, they should 
cause them to be drawn with hooks from the house door 
and burnt in the street. The poor distressed man upon 
this fetched the goods again, but with grievous cries and 
lamentations at the hardship of his case. But there was no 
remedy, self-preservation obliged ^ the people to those sever- 
ities, which they would not otherwise have been concerned 
in. Whether this poor man lived or died I cannot tell, but 

^ Not near eiiongli to tlie town for deatlis in it to be entered on the 
records of the town. 

* Before the court. ^Tlie goods. Forced. 



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it was reported that he had the plague upon him at that 
time, and perhaps the people might report that to justify 
their usage of him ; but it was not unlikely that either he 
or his goods, or both, were dangerous, when his whole 
family had been dead of the distemper so little a while 
before. 

I know that the inhabitants of the towns adjacent to 
London were much blamed for cruelty to the poor people 
that ran from the contagion in their distress, and many 
very severe things were done, as may be seen from what 
has been said ; but I cannot but say also, that where there 
was room for charity and assistance to the people, without 
apparent danger to themselves, they were willing enough 
to help and relieve them. But as every town were,^ indeed, 
judges in their ^ own case, so the poor people who ran 
abroad in their extremities were often ill-used and driven 
back again into the town ; and this caused infinite exclama- 
tions and outcries against the country towns, and made the 
clamour ^ very popular. 

And yet more or less, maugre ^ all the caution, there was 
not a town of any note within ten (or, I believe, twenty) 
miles of the city, but what was more or less infected, and 
had some died ^ among them. I have heard the accounts 
of several, such as they were ^ reckoned up, as follows : — 



In Enfield . 
Hornsey 
Newington 
Tottenham , 
Edmonton 
Barnet and Hadley 
St. Albans 
Watford . 
Uxbridge 



32 
58 
17 
42 
19 
43 

121 
45 

117 



' Was. '-^ Its. 

2 'I'he outcry against the alleged cruelty of the towns. 

* In spite of. Who died. « Such as were. 



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In Hertford 

Ware . . . 
Hodsdon 
Waltliam Abbey 
Epping- 
Deptford 
G-reenwich . 
Eltham and Liisum 
Croydon 
Brentwood 
Eumford 
Barking, about 
Brandford . 
Kingston 
Staines 
Cliertsey . 
Windsor 



. 90 
160 
. 30 
23 
. 26 
623 
. 631 
85 

. 61 

70 
. 109 

200 
. 432 
122 
„ 82 
18 
. 103 
cum aliis.^ 



Another thing might render the country more strict with 
respect to the citizens, and especially with respect to the 
poor ; and this was what I hinted at before, namely, that 
there was a seeming propensity, or a wicked inclination, in 
those that were infected to infect others. 

There have been great debates among our physicians as 
to the reason of this : some will have it to be in the nature 
of the disease, and that it impresses every one that is 
seized upon by it with a kind of rage and a hatred against 
their own kind, as if there were a malignity, not only in 
the distemper to communicate itself, but in the very nature 
of man, prompting him with evil will, or an evil eye,^ that 
as they say in the case of a mad dog, who, though the 
gentlest creature before of any of his kind, yet then will 
fly upon and bite any one that comes next ^ him, and those ^ 

' With others. 

2 That is, witli a desire to use the baleful pon-ers that belonged to 
au " evil eye." ^ Nearest. "* Those nearest him. 



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as soon as any who have been most observed by him be- 
fore. 

Others placed it to the account of the corruption of 
human nature, who ^ cannot bear to see itself more miser- 
able than others of its own species, and has a kind of in- 
voluntary wish that all men were as unhappy or in as bad 
a condition as itself. 

Others say it was only a kind of desperation, not know- 
ing^ or regarding what they did, and consequently uncon- 
cerned at the danger or safety, not only of anybody near 
them, but even of themselves also. And, indeed, when 
men are once come to a condition to ^ abandon themselves, 
and be unconcerned for the safety or at the danger of 
themselves, it cannot be so much wondered that they should 
be careless of the safety of other people. 

But I choose to give this grave debate quite a ditferent 
turn, and answer it or resolve it all by saying that I do not 
grant the fact. On the contrary, I say that the thing is 
not really so, but that it was a general complaint raised by 
the people inhabiting the out-lying villages against the 
citizens, to justify, or at least excuse, those hardships and 
severities so much talked of, and in which complaints both 
sides may be said to have injured one another ; that is to 
say, the citizens, pressing to be received and harboured in 
time of distress, and with the plague upon them, complain 
of the cruelty and injustice of the country people, in being 
refused entrance, and forced back again with their goods 
and families ; and the inhabitants, finding themselves so 
imposed upon, and the citizens breaking in as it were upon 
them, whether they would or no, complain that when they^ 
were infected they were not only regardless of others, but 
even willing to infect them : neither of which was really 
true, that is to say, in the colours they^ were described in. 

' The relative, and tlie pronouns tliat follow it, refer partly to " hu- 
man nature," partly to some word like " man," to which it is assumed 
to be equivalent. Men not knowing ^ To such a condition as to. 

* The citizens. s The preceding statements. 



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It is true there is something to be said for the frequent 
alarms which were given to the country of the resolution of 
the people of London to come out by force, not only for 
relief, but to plunder and rob, that^ they ran about the 
streets with the distemper upon them without any control, 
and that no care was taken to' shut uj) houses, and confine 
the sick people from infecting others ; whereas, to do the 
Londoners justice, they never practised such things, except 
in such particular cases as I have mentioned above, and 
such like. On the other hand, everything was managed 
with so much care, and such excellent order was observed 
in the whole city and suburbs, by the care of the lord 
mayor and aldermen, and by the justices of the peace, 
churchwardens, etc., in the out-parts, that London may be 
a pattern to all the cities in the world for the good govern- 
ment and the excellent order that was everywhere kept, 
even in the time of the most violent infection, and when 
the people were in the utmost consternation and distress. 
But of this I shall speak by itself. 

One thing, it is to be observed, was owing principally to 
the prudence of the magistrates, and ought to be men- 
tioned to their honour, viz., the moderation which they 
used in the great and difficult work of shutting up houses. 
It is true, as I have mentioned, ^ that the shutting up of 
houses was a great subject of discontent, and I may say, in- 
deed, the only subject of discontent among the people 
at that time ; for the confining the sound in the same 
house with the sick was counted very terrible, and the 
complaints of people so confined were very grievous ; they 
were heard in the very streets, and they were sometimes 
such that called for resentment, though oftener for com- 
passion ; they had no way to converse with any of their 
friends but out of their windows, where they would make 
such piteous lamentations as often moved the hearts of 
those they talked with, and of others who, passing by, 

' Alarms, that. See page 49. 



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153 



heard their story ; and as those complaints oftentimes re- 
proached the severity, and sometimes the insolence, of the 
watchmen placed at their doors, those watchmen would 
answer saucily enough, and perhaps be apt to affront the 
people who were in the street talking to the said families, 
for which, or for their ill-treatment of the families, I think 
seven or eight of them in several places were killed ; I 
know not whether I should say murdered or not, because I 
cannot enter into the particular cases. It is true, the 
watchmen were on their duty, and acting in the post where 
they were placed by a lawful authority : and killing any 
public legal officer in the execution of his office is always, 
in the language of the law, called murder. But as they 
were not authorized by the magistrate's instructions, or by 
the power they acted under, to be injurious or abusive, 
either to the people who were under their observation, or 
to any that concerned themselves for them, so that when 
they did so they might be said to act themselves, not their 
office, to act as private persons, not as persons employed, and 
consequently, if they brought mischief upon themselves by 
such an undue behaviour, that mischief was upon their own 
heads ; and, indeed, they had so much the hearty curses of 
the people, whether they deserved it or not, that whatever 
befell them nobody pitied them, and everybody was apt to 
say they deserved it, whatever it was ; nor do I remember 
that anybody was ever punished, at least to any consider- 
able degree, for whatever was done to the watchmen that 
guarded their houses. 

What variety of stratagems were ^ used to escape and get 
out of houses thus shut up, by which the watchmen were 
deceived or overpowered, and that ^ the people got away, I 
have taken notice of already,^ and shall say no more to that ; 
but I say the magistrates did' moderate and ease families 
upon many occasions in this case, and particularly in that 
of taking away or suffering to be removed the sick persons 
out of such houses, when they were willing to be removed, 
' Was. 2 xi^g fj^p^ ^j^^^^ 3 page 52. 



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either to a pest-house or other places^ and sometimes giving 
the well persons in the family so shut up leave to remove 
upon information given that they were well, and that they 
w^ould confine themselves in such houses where they went 
so long as should be required of them. The concern also 
of the magistrates for the supplying such poor families as 
were infected, I say, supplying them with necessaries, as 
well physic as food, Avas very great, and in which ^ they did 
not content themselves with giving the necessary orders to 
the officers appointed, but the aldermen in person, and on 
horseback, frequently rode to such houses and caused the 
people to be asked at their windows whether they were duly 
attended or not ; also whether they w^anted anything that 
was necessary, and if the officers had constantly carried their 
messages, and fetched them such things as they wanted, 
or not ; and if they answered in the affirmative, all was 
well ; but if they complained that they were ill-supplied, 
and that the officer did not do his duty, or did not treat them 
civilly, they (the officers) were generally removed, and 
others placed in their stead. 

It is true such complaint might be unjust, and if the 
officer had such arguments to use as would convince the 
magistrate that he was right, and that the people had in- 
jured him, he was continued and they reproved. But this 
part could not well bear a particular inquiry, for the parties 
could very ill be well heard and answered in the street from 
the windows, as was the case then ; the magistrates there- 
fore generally chose to favour the people, and remove the 
man, as what seemed to be the least wrong, and of the least 
ill consequence ; seeing, if the watchman was injured, yet 
they could easily make him amends by giving him another 
post of a like nature ; but if the family was injured, there 
was no satisfaction could be made to them, the damage per- 
haps being irreparable, as it concerned their lives. 

A great variety of these cases frequently haj^pened be- 
tween the watchmen and the poor people shut up, besides 
' In such cases. 



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155 



those I formerly mentioned abont escaping ; sometimes the 
watchmen were absent, sometimes drunk, sometimes asleep 
when the people wanted them, and such never failed to be 
punished severely, as indeed they deserved. 

But, after all that was or could be done in these cases, 
the shutting up of houses, so as to confine those that were 
well with those that were sick, had very great inconven- 
iences in it, and some that were very tragical, and which 
merited to have been considered if there had been room 
for it ; but it was authorized by a law, it had the public 
good in view, as the end chiefly aimed at, and all the 
private injuries that were done by the putting it in execu- 
tion must be put to the account of the public benefit. 

It is doubtful whether, in the whole, it contributed any- 
thing to the stop of the infection, and, indeed, I cannot 
say it did ; for nothing could run with greater fury and 
rage than the infection did when it was in its chief vio- 
lence ; though the houses infected were shut up as exactly 
and effectually as it was possible. Certain it is, that if all 
the infected persons were effectually shut in, no sound per- 
son could have been infected by them, because they could 
not have come near them.^ But the case^ was this, and I 
shall only touch it here, namely, that the infection was 
propagated insensibly, and by such persons as were not vis- 
ibly infected, who neither knew whom they infected, nor 
whom they were infected by. 

A house in Whitechapel was shut up for the sake of one 
infected maid, who had only spots, not the tokens, come 
out upon her, and recovered ; yet these people obtained no 
liberty to stir, neither for air or exercise forty days ; ^ want 
of breath,'* fear, anger, vexation, and all the other griefs 
attending such an injurious treatment, cast the mistress of 
the family into a fever ; and visitors ^ came into the house 

'Unless, as we now understand, the germs of the disease were con- 
veyed otlierwise than by contact between infected persons. 

- Point. For forty days. * Want of fresli air. 

^ The official examiners. 



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and said it was the j^lagiie, though tlie physicians declared 
it was not ; however^ the family were obliged to begin 
their quarantine anew, on the report of the visitor or ex- 
aminer, though their former quarantine wanted but a few 
days of being finished. This oppressed them so with anger 
and grief, and, as before, straitened them also so much as 
to room, and for want of breathing and free air, that most 
of the family fell sick, one of one distemper, one of an- 
other, chiefly scorbutic ailments,^ only one a^ violent cholic, 
until after several prolongings of their confinement, some 
or other of those that came in with the visitors to inspect 
the persons that were ill, in hopes of releasing them, 
brought the distemper with them, and infected the whole 
house, and all or most of them died, not of the plague as 
really upon them before, but of the plague that those people 
brought them, who should have been careful to have pro- 
tected them from it ; and this was a thing which frequently 
happened, and was, indeed, one of the worst consequences 
of shutting houses up. 

I had about this time a little hardship put upon me, 
which I was at first greatly afflicted at, and very much dis- 
turbed about, though, as it proved, it did not expose me to 
any disaster ; and this was, being appointed, by the alder- 
man of Portsoken ward, one of the examiners of the houses 
in the precinct where I lived ; we had a large parish, and 
had no less than eighteen examiners, as the order ^ called 
us : the people called us visitors. I endeavoured with all 
my might to be excused from such an employment, and used 
many arguments with the alderman's deputy to be ex- 
cused ; particularly, I alleged, that I was against shutting 
up houses at all, and that it would be very hard to oblige 
me to be an instrument in that which was against my 
judgment, and which I did verily believe would not answer 
the end it was intended for ; but all the abatement I could 
get was only that, whereas the officer was appointed by my 

^ The scurvy, or similar diseases. -Of a. 

The official appointment. 



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157 



lord mayor to continue two months, I should be obliged to 
hold it but three weeks^ on condition, nevertheless, that I 
could then get some other sufficient housekeeper to serve 
the rest of the time for me, which was, in short, but a 
very small favour, it being very difficult to get any man to 
accept of such an employment, that was fit to be intrusted 
with it. 

It is true, that shutting up of houses had one effect, 
which I am sensible was of moment, namely, it confined 
the distempered people, who would otherwise have been 
both very troublesome and very dangerous in their run- 
ning about streets with the distemper upon them : which, 
when they were delirious, they would have done in a most 
frightful manner as, indeed, they began to do at first very 
much, until they were restrained ; nay, so very open they 
were, that the poor would go about and beg at people's 
doors, and say they had the plague upon them, and beg 
rags for their sores, or both, or anything that delirious 
nature happened to think of. 

A poor unhappy gentlewoman, a substantial citizen's 
wife, was, if the story be true, murdered by one of these 
creatures in Aldersgate Street, or that way.^ He was going 
along the street, raving mad to be sure, and singing ; the 
people only said he was drunk,^ but he himself said he had 
the plague upon him, which, it seems, was true ; and meet- 
ing this gentlewoman, he would kiss her ; she was terribly 
frightened, as he was a rude fellow, and she run from him ; 
but the street being very thin of people, there was nobody 
near enough to help her ; when she saw he would overtake 
her, she turned and gave him a thrust, so forcibly, he be- 
ing but weak, as pushed him down backward ; but very 
unhappily, she being so near, he caught hold of her, and 
pulled her down also ; and getting up first, mastered her, 
and kissed her ; and which was worst of all, when he had 
done, told her he had the plague, and why should not she 
liave it as well as he ? She was frightened enough before 

' lu that vicinity. ^ Said lie was only di iink. 



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. . . but when she heard him say he had the plague^ 
she screamed out and fell down into a swoon, or in a fit, 
which, though she recovered a little, yet killed her in a 
very few days, and I never heard whether she had the 
plague or no. 

Another infected person came and knocked at the door 
of a citizen^s house, where they knew him very well ; the 
servant let him in, and being told the master of the house 
was above, he ran up, and came into the room to them as 
the whole family were at supper. They began to rise up 
a little surprised, not knowing what the matter was ; but 
he bid them sit still, he only come ^ to take his leave of 

them. They asked him, Why, Mr. , where are you 

going ? " Going ! " says he, " I have got the sickness, 
and shall die to-morrow night. ''^ It is easy to believe, 
though not to describe, the consternation they were all in ; 
the women and the man^s daughters, which ^ were but 
little girls, were frightened almost to death, and got up, 
one running out at one door, and one at another, some 
downstairs and some upstairs, and getting together as 
well as they could, locked themselves into their chambers, 
and screamed out at the windows for help, as if they had 
been frightened out of their wits. The master, more com- 
posed than they, though both frightened and provoked, 
was going to lay hands on him and throw him down stairs, 
being in a passion ; but then, considering a little the con- 
dition of the man, and the danger of touching him, horror 
seized his mind, and he stood still like one astonished. 
The poor distempered man, all this while, being as well 
diseased in his brain as in his body, stood still like one 
amazed ; at length he turns round ; Ay ! " says he, with 
all the seeming calmness imaginable, is it so with you all ? 
Are yon all disturbed at me ? Why, then I'll e'en go 
home and die there. And so he goes immediately down 
stairs. The servant that had let him in goes down after 
him with a candle, but was afraid to go past him and open 
' Came. a Who. 



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159 



the cloor^ so he stood on the stairs to see what he would do ; 
the man went and opened the door, and went out and 
flung 1 the door after him. It was some while before the 
family recovered ^ the fright ; but as no ill consequence 
attended, they have had occasion since to speak of it, you 
may be sure, with great satisfaction ; though the man was 
gone, it was some time, nay, as I heard, some days, before 
they recovered themselves of the hurry ^ they were in ; 
nor did they go up and down the house with any assurance 
till they had burnt a great variety of fumes and perfumes 
in all the rooms, and made a great many smokes of pitch, 
of gunpowder, and of sulphur ; all separately shifted,^ and 
washed their clothes, and the like. As to the poor man, 
whether he lived or died I do not remember. 

It is most certain, that if, by the shutting up of houses, 
the sick had not been confined, multitudes, who in the 
height of their fever were delirious and distracted, would 
have been continually running up and down the streets ; 
and, even as it was, a very great number did so, and of- 
fered all sorts of violence to those they met, even just as a 
mad dog runs on and bites at every one he meets ; nor 
can I doubt but that should one of those infected diseased 
creatures have bitten any man or woman, while the frenzy 
of the distemper was upon them, they, I mean the person 
so wounded, would as certainly have been incurably in- 
fected, as one that was sick before, and had the tokens 
upon him. 

I heard of one infected creature, who, running out of his 
bed in his shirt, in the anguish and agony of his swellings, 
of which he had three upon him, got his shoes on and 
went to put on his coat, but the nurse resisting and snatch- 
ing the coat from him, he threw her down, run over her, 
ran down stairs, and into the street directly to the Thames, 
in his shirt, tlie nurse running after him, and calling to 

1 Flung to. liecoveied from. 

Confusion. ' Changed their clotlies. 



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the watch to stop him ; but the watchman^ frightened at 
the man, and afraid to touch him, let him go on ; upon 
which lie ran down to the Still-Yard Stairs, threw away 
his shirt, and plunged into the Thames ; and, being a good 
swimmer, swam quite over the river ; and the tide being 
coming in, as they call it, that is, running westward, he 
reached the land not till he came about the Falcon Stairs, 
where landing, and finding no people there, it being in the 
night, he ran about the streets there, naked as he was, for 
a good while, when, it being by that time high water, he 
takes the river again, and swam back to the Still- Yard, 
landed, ran up the streets to his own house, knocking at 
the door, went up the stairs, and into his bed again ; and 
that ^ this terrible experiment cured him of the plague, 
that is to say, that the violent motion of his arms and legs 
stretched the parts where the swellings he had upon him 
were, that is to say, under his arms and in his groin, and 
caused them to ripen and break ; and that the cold of the 
water abated the fever in his blood. 

I have only to add, that I do not relate this any more 
than some of the other, ^ as a fact within my own knowl- 
edge, so as that I can vouch the truth of them, and espe- 
cially that of the man being cured by the extravagant ad- 
venture, which I confess I do not think very possible, but 
it may serve to confirm the many desperate things which 
the distressed people falling into deliriums, and what we 
call light-headedness, were frequently run upon ^ at that 
time, and how infinitely more such there would have been 
if such people had not been confined by the shutting up 
of houses ; and this I take to be the best, if not the only 
good thing, which was performed by that severe method. 

On the other hand, the complaints and the murmurings 
were very bitter against the thing itself. 

It would pierce the hearts of all that came by to hear the 
piteous cries of those infected people, who, being thus out 
of their understandings by the violence of their pain, or 

1 It seems that. ■ Stories. ^ Forced into. 



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161 



the heat of their blood, were either shut in, or perhaps 
tied in their beds and chairs, to prevent their doing them- 
selves hurt, and who would make a dreadful outcry at their 
being confined, and at their being not permitted to die at 
large, as they called it, and as they would have done be- 
fore. 

This running of distempered people about the streets 
was very dismal, and the magistrates did their utmost to 
prevent it ; but, as it was generally in the night, and 
always sudden, when such attempts were made, the officers 
could not be at hand to prevent it ; and, even when they 
got out in the day, the officers appointed did not care to 
meddle with them, because, as they were all grievously in- 
fected^ to be sure, ^ when they were come to that height, so 
they were more than ordinarily infectious, and it was one of 
the most dangerous things that could be to touch them ; on 
the other hand, they generally ran on, not knowing what 
they did, till they dropped down stark dead, or till they 
had exhausted their spirits so as that they would fall and 
then die in perhaps half an hour or an hour ; and which ^ 
was most piteous to hear, they were sure to come to them- 
selves entirely in that half hour or hour, and then to make 
most grievous and piercing cries and lamentations, in the 
deep afflicting sense of the condition they were in. There 
was much of it before the order for shutting up of houses 
was strictly put into execution ; for, at first, the watch- 
men were not so rigorous and severe as they were after- 
wards in the keeping ^ the people in ; that is to say, be- 
fore they were, I mean some of them, severely punished 
for their neglect, failing^ in their duty, and letting people 
who were under their care slip away, or conniving at their 
going abroad,^ whether sick or well. But, after they saw 
the officers appointed to examine into their conduct were 
resolved to have them do their duty, or be punished for 
the omission, they were more exact, and the people were 

' Surely. Wliat. ^ The keeping of. 

For failing. ^ Going out. 

11 



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strictly restrained ; which was a thing they took so ill, and 
bore so impatiently, that their discontents can hardly be 
described ; but there was an absolute necessity for it, that 
must be confessed, unless some other measures had been 
timely entered upon ; and it was too late for that. 

Had not this particular ^ of the sick being restrained, as 
above, been our case at that time, London would have 
been the most dreadful place that ever was in the world ; 
there would, for aught I know, have as many people died 
in the streets as died in their houses ; for, when the dis- 
temper was at its height, it generally made them raving 
and delirious, and when they were so, they would never be 
persuaded to keep in their beds but by force ; and many 
who were not tied, threw themselves out of windows, when 
they found they could not get leave to go out of their doors. 

It was for want of people conversing one with another in 
this time of calamity, that it was impossible any particular 
person could come at the knowledge of all the extraordi- 
nary cases that occurred in different families ; and, par- 
ticularly, I believe it was never '-^ known to this day how 
many people in their deliriums drowned themselves in the 
Thames, and in the river which runs from the marshes by 
Hackney, which we generally called Ware River, or Hack- 
ney River. As to those which were set down in the 
weekly bill, they were indeed few, nor could it be known 
of any of those, whether they drowned themselves by ac- 
cident or not ; but I believe I might reckon up more, who, 
within the compass of my knowledge or observation, really 
drowned themselves in that year, than are put down in the 
bill of all put together, for many of the bodies were never 
found, who yet were known to be lost ; and the like in 
other methods of self-destruction. There was also one 
man in or about Whitecross Street burnt himself to death 
in his bed ; some said it was done by himself, others, that 
it was by the treachery of the nurse that attended him, but 
that he had the plague upon him was agreed by all. 

' Fact. - Has never been. 



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163 



It was a merciful disposition of Providence also^ and 
which I have many times thought of at that time^ that no 
fires^ or no considerable ones at least, happened in the city 
during that year, which, if it had been otherwise would 
have been very dreadful ; and either the people must have 
let them alone unquenched, or have come together in great 
crowds and throngs, unconcerned at the danger of the in- 
fection, not concerned at the houses they went into, at the 
goods they handled, or at the persons or the people they came 
among : but so it was, that, excepting that in Oripplegate 
parish, and two or three little eruptions of fires, which were 
presently extinguished, there was no disaster of that kind 
happened ^ in the whole year. They told us a story of a 
house in a place called Swan Alley, passing from Goswell 
Street, near the end of Old Street, into St. John Street, that 
a family was infected there in so terrible a manner that 
every one of the house died ; the last person lay dead on 
the floor, and, as it is supjDosed, had laid herself all along ^ to 
die just before the fire ; the fire, it seems, had fallen from 
its place, being of wood, and had taken hold of the boards 
and the joists they lay on, and burnt as far as just to the 
body, but had not taken hold of the dead body, though she 
had little more than her shift on, and had gone out of itself, 
not hurting the rest of the house, though it was a slight 
timber house. How true this might be I do not determine, 
but the city being to suffer severely the next year, by fire ^ 
this year it felt very little of that calamity. 

Indeed, considering the deliriums which the agony threw 
people into, and how I have mentioned ^ in their madness 
when they were alone, they did many desperate things, it 
was very strange there were no more disasters of that kind. 

It has been frequently asked me, and I cannot say that I 
ever knew how to give a direct answer to it, how it came to 
pass that so many infected peojjle appeared abroad in the 

' That happened. 2 c^l^retched herself out. 

3 The great fire of 1667. Mentioned that. 



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streets, at the same time that the houses which were in- 
fected were so vigilantly searched, and all of them shut up 
and guarded as they were. 

I confess I know not what answer to give to this, unless 
it be this, that in so great and populous a city as this is, it 
was impossible to discover every house that was infected as 
soon as it was so, or to shut up all the houses that were in- 
fected ; so that people had the liberty of going about the 
streets, even where they pleased, unless they were known 
to belong to such and such infected houses. 

It is true, that, as the several physicians told my lord 
mayor, the fury of the contagion was such at some particu- 
lar times, and people sickened so fast, and died so soon, that 
it was impossible, and, indeed, to no purpose, to go about 
to inquire who was sick and who was well, or to shut them 
up with such exactness as the thing required ; almost every 
house in a whole street being infected, and in many places 
every person in some of the houses ; and that which was 
still worse, by the time that the houses were known to be 
infected, most of the persons infected would be stone dead, 
and the rest run away for fear of being shut up, so that it 
was to very small purpose to call them infected houses and 
shut them up ; the infection having ravaged, and taken its 
leave of the house, before it was really known that the 
family was any way touched. 

This might be sufficient to convince any reasonable person, 
that as it was not in the power of the magistrates, or of any 
human methods or policy, to prevent the spreading ^ the 
infection, so that this way of shutting up of houses was 
perfectly insufficient for that end. Indeed, it seemed to 
have no manner of public good in it, equal or proportion- 
able to the grievous burthen that it was to the particular 
families that were so shut up ; and, as far as I was employed 
by the public in directing that severity, I frequently found 
occasion to see that it was incapable of answering the end. 
For example, as I was desired as a visitor or examiner to 
' The spreudiug of. 



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165 



inquire into the particulars of several families which were 
infected, we scarce came to any house where the plague 
had visibly appeared in the family but that some of the 
family were fled and gone. The magistrates would resent 
this, and charge the examiners with being remiss in their 
examination or inspection ; but by that means houses were 
long infected before it was known. Now, as ^ I was in this 
dangerous office but half the appointed time, which was 
two months, it was long enough to inform myself that we 
were no way capable of coming at the knowledge of the 
true state of any family, but by inquiring at the door, or of 
the neighbours. As for going into every house to search, 
that was a part no authority would offer to impose on the 
inhabitants, or any citizen would undertake, for it would 
have been exposing us to certain infection and death, and 
to the ruin of our own families as well as of ourselves ; nor 
would any citizen of probity, and that could be depended 
upon, have stayed in the town, if they had been made 
liable to such a severity. 

Seeing, then, that we could come at the certainty of 
things by no method but that of inquiry of the neighbours 
or of the family, and on that we could not justly depend, 
it was not possible but that the uncertainty of this matter 
would remain as above. 

It is true masters of families were bound by the order 
to give notice to the examiner of the place wherein 
he lived, within two hours after he should discover it, 
of any person being sick in his house, that is to say, 
having signs of the infection ; but they found so many 
ways to evade this, and excuse their negligence, that they 
seldom gave that notice till they had taken measures to 
have every one escape out of the house who had a mind 
to escape, whether they were sick or sound ; and while 
this was so, it was easy to see that the shutting up of 
houses was no way to be depended upon as a sufficient 
method for putting a sto]) to the infection, because, as I 

' Although. 



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have said elsewhere, many of those that so went out of 
those infected houses had the plague really upon them, 
though they might really think themselves sound ; and 
some of these were the people that walked the streets till 
they fell down dead, not that they were suddenly struck 
with the distemper, as with a bullet that killed with the 
stroke, but that they really had the infection in their blood 
long before, only that, as it preyed secretly on their vitals, 
it appeared not till it seized the heart with a mortal 
power, and the patient died in a moment, as with a sud- 
den fainting, or an apoplectic fit. 

I know that some, even of our physicians, thought, for 
a time, that those people that so died in the streets were 
seized but that moment ^ they fell, as if they had been 
touched by a stroke from heaven, as men are killed by a 
flash of lightning ; but they found reason to alter their 
opinion afterward, for upon examining the bodies of such 
after they were dead, they always either had tokens upon 
them, or other evident proofs of the distemper having 
been longer upon them than they had otherwise expected. 

This often was the reason that, as I have said, we that 
were examiners were not able to come at the knowledge 
of the infection being entered into a house till it was too 
late to shut it up, and sometimes not till the people that 
were left were all dead. In Petticoat Lane two houses to- 
gether were infected, and several people sick ; but, the 
distemper was so well concealed, the examiner, who was 
my neighbour, got no knowledge of it till notice was sent 
him that the people were all dead, and that the carts 
should call there to fetch them away. The two heads of 
the families concerted their measures, and so ordered their 
matters, as that when the examiner was in the neighbour- 
hood, they appeared generally at a time,^ and answered, 
that is, lied, for one another, or got some of the neighbour- 
hood to say they were all in health, and perha2:>s knew no 
better, till death making it impossible to keep it any longer 
^ Only at the moment. - At the same time. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



167 



as a secret, the dead-carts were called in tlie night to both 
the honses, and so it became public ; but when the exam- 
iner ordered the constable to shut up the houses, there 
was nobody left in them but three people, two in one 
house, and one in the other, just dying, and a nurse in 
each house, who acknowledged that they had buried five 
before, that the houses had been infected nine or ten days, 
and that for all the rest of the two families, which were 
many, they were gone, some sick, some well, or whether 
sick or well, could not be known. 

In like manner, at another house in the same lane, a 
man, having his family infected, but very unwilling to be 
shut up, when he could conceal it no longer, shut up him- 
self ; that is to say, he set the great red cross upon the 
door, with the words, — " Lord, have mercy upoi^ us 
and so deluded the examiner, who supposed it had been 
done by the constable, by order of the other examiner, for 
there were two examiners to every district or precinct. 
By this means he had free egress and regress into his 
house again, and out of it, as he pleased, notwithstanding 
it was infected, till at length his stratagem was found out, 
and then he, with the sound part of his family and servants, 
made off, and escaped ; so they were not shut up at all. 

These things made it very hard, if not impossible, as I 
have said, to prevent the spreading of an infection by the 
shutting up of houses, unless the people would think the 
shutting up of their houses no grievance, and be so willing 
to have it done as that they would give notice duly and 
faithfully to the magistrates of their being infected, as 
soon as it was known by themselves ; but as that cannot be 
expected from them, and the examiners cannot be sup- 
posed, as above, to go into their houses to visit and search, 
all the good of shutting up houses will be defeated, and 
few houses will be shut up in time, except those of the 
poor, who cannot conceal it, and of some people who will 
be discovered by the terror and consternation which the 
thing put them into. 



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I got myself discharged of the dangerous ofiice I was in, 
as soon as I could get another admitted, whom I had ob- 
tained for a little money to accept of it ; and so, instead of 
serving the two months, which was directed, I was not 
above three weeks in it ; and ^ a great while, too, consider- 
ing it was in the month of August, at which time the dis- 
temper began to rage with great violence at our end of the 
town. 

In the execution of this office, I could not refrain speak- 
ing my opinion among my neighbours, as to the shutting 
up the people in their houses ; in which we saw most evi- 
dently the severities that were used, though grievous in 
themselves, had also this particular objection against them, 
namely, that they did not answer the end, as I have said, 
but that the distempered people went, day by day, about 
the streets ; and it was our united opinion, that a method 
to have removed the sound from the sick, in case of a par- 
ticular house being visited, would have been much more 
reasonable, on many accounts ; leaving nobody with the 
sick persons, but such as should, on such occasions, request 
to stay, and declare themselves content to be shut up with 
them. 

Our scheme for removing those that were sound from 
those that were sick, was only in such houses as were in- 
fected, and confining the sick was no confinement ; those 
that could not stir would not complain while they were in 
their senses, and while they had the power of judging. 
Indeed, when they came to be delirious and light-headed, 
then they would cry out of ^ the cruelty of being confined ; 
but, for the removal of those that were well, we thought it 
highly reasonable and just, for their own sakes, they 
should be removed from the sick, and that, for other peo- 
ple's safety, they should keep retired for awhile, to see 
that they were sound, and might not infect others ; and Ave 
thought twenty or thirty days enough for this. 

Now, certainly, if houses had been provided on purpose 
1 And it was. - At. 



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169 



for those that were sounds to perform this demi-qiiaran- 
tine in, they would have much less reason to think them- 
selves injured in such restraint, than in being confined 
with infected people in the houses where they lived. 

It is here, however, to be observed, that, after the fune- 
rals became so many that people could not toll the bell, 
mourn, or weep, or wear black for one another, as they did 
before ; no, nor so much as make coffins for those that 
died ; so, after a while, the fury of the infection appeared 
to be so increased that, in short, they shut up no houses at 
all ; it seemed enough that all the remedies of that kind 
had been used till they were found fruitless, and that the 
plague spread itself with an irresistible fury, so that as the 
fire the succeeding year spread itself and burnt with such vio- 
lence that the citizens, in despair, gave over their endeav- 
ours to extinguish it, so in the plague, it came at last to 
such violence that the people sat still looking at one an- 
other, and seemed quite abandoned to despair. Whole 
streets seemed to be desolated, and not to be shut up only, 
but to be emptied of their inhabitants ; doors were left 
open, windows stood shattering ^ with the wind in empty 
houses, for want of people to shut them ; in a word, peo- 
ple began to give up themselves to their fears, and to think 
that all regulations and methods were in vain, and that 
there was nothing to be hoped for but an universal desola- 
tion ; and it was even in the height of this general despair 
that it pleased God to stay his hand, and to slacken the 
fury of the contagion, in such a manner as was even sur- 
prising, like its beginning, and demonstrated it to be his 
own particular hand ; and that above, if not without, the 
agency of means, as I shall take notice of in its proper 
place. 

But I must still speak of the plague, as in its height, 
raging even to desolation, and the people under tlie most 
dreadful consternation, even, as I have said, to despair. It 
^ " Banging " to and fro. 



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is hardly credible to what excesses the passions of men 
carried them in this extremity of the distemper ; and this 
part, I think, was as moving as the rest. What could 
affect a man in his full power of reflection, and what could 
make deeper impressions on the soul than to see a man, 
almost naked, and got out of his house, or perhaps out of 
his bed, into the street, come out of Harrow Alley, a popu- 
lous conjunction or collection of alleys, courts, and pas- 
sages, in the Butcher Kow in Whitechapel ; I say, what 
could be more affecting, than to see this poor man come 
out into the open street, run, dancing and singing, and 
making a thousand antic gestures, with five or six women 
and children running after him, crying and calling upon 
him, for the Lord^s sake, to come back, and entreating 
the help of others to bring him back, but all in vain, no- 
body daring to lay a hand upon him, or to come near him ? 

This was a most grievous and afflicting thing to me, who 
saw it all from my own windows ; for all this while the 
poor afflicted man was, as I observed it, even then in the 
utmost agony of pain, having, as they said, two swellings 
upon him, which could not be brought to break or to sup- 
purate ; but by laying strong caustics on them, the sur- 
geons had, it seems, hopes to break them, which caustics 
were then upon him, burning his flesh as with a hot iron. 
I cannot say what became of this poor man, but I think he 
continued roving about in that manner till he fell down 
and died. 

No wonder the aspect of the city itself was frightful ! 
The usual concourse of the people in the streets, and ^ 
which used to be supplied from our end of the town, was 
abated ; the Exchange was not kept shut indeed, but it 
was no more frequented ; the fires were lost ; they had 
been almost extinguished for some days, by a very smart 
and hasty rain ; but that was not all ; some of the phy- 
sicians insisted, that they were not only no benefit, but 
injurious to the health of the people. This they made a 
1 " And " is unnecessary. 



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171 



loud clamour about^ and complained to the lord mayor 
about it. On the other hand, others of the same faculty, 
and eminent too, opposed them, and gave their reasons 
why the fires were and must be useful, to assuage the vio- 
lence of the distemper. I cannot give a full account of 
their arguments on both sides, only this I remember, that 
they cavilled very much with one another. Some were for 
fires, but that they must be made of wood, and not coal, 
and of particular sorts of wood too, such as fir, in particu- 
lar, or cedar, because of the strong effluvia of turpentine ; 
others were for coal and not wood, because of the sulphur 
and bitumen ; and others were neither for one or other. 
Upon the whole, the lord mayor ordered no more fires : 
and especially on this account, namely, that the plague 
was so fierce, that they saw evidently it defied all means, 
and rather seemed to increase than decrease, upon any ap- 
plication to check and abate it ; and yet this amazement of 
the magistrates proceeded rather from want of being able 
to apply any means successfully, than from any unwilling- 
ness, either to expose themselves, or undertake the care 
and weight of business, for, to do them justice, they 
neither spared their pains nor their persons : but nothing 
answered, the infection raged, and the people were now 
terrified to the last degree ; so that, as I may say, they 
gave themselves up, and as I mentioned above, abandoned 
themselves to their despair. 

But let me observe here, that, when I say the people 
abandoned themselves to despair, I do not mean to what 
men call a religious despair, or a despair of their eternal 
state ; but I mean a despair of their being able to escape 
the infection, or to outlive the plague, which they saw was 
so raging and so irresistible in its force, that indeed few 
people that were touched with it in its height, about 
August and September, escaped ; and, which is very par- 
ticular,^ contrary to its ordinary operation in June and 
July, and the beginning of August, when, as I have 
' Particularly to be noted. 



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observed, maii}^ were infected, and continued so many 
days, and then went ofJ, after having liad the poison in 
their blood a long time ; but now, on the contrary, most 
of the people who were taken during the last two weeks in 
August, and in the first three weeks in September, gen- 
erally died in two or three days at the farthest, and many 
the very same day they were taken. Whether the dog- 
days, as our astrologers pretended to express themselves, 
the influence of the dog-star, had that malignant effect, or 
all those who had the seeds of infection before in them, 
brought it ujo to a maturity at that time altogether, I 
know not ; but this was the time when it was reported 
that above tliree thousand people died in one night ; and 
they that would have us believe they more critically ob- 
served it, pretend to say, that they all died within the 
space of two hours ; viz., between the hours of one and 
three in the morning. 

As to the suddenness of people dying at this time, more 
than before, there were innumerable instances of it, and I 
could name several in my neighbourhood ; one family with- 
out the bars, and not far from me, were all seemingly well 
on the Monday, being ten in family ; that evening, one 
maid and one apprentice were taken ill, and died the next 
morning, when the other apprentice and two children were 
touched, whereof one died the same evening, and the 
other two on Wednesday ; in a word, by Saturday at noon, 
the master, mistress, four children, and four servants, were 
all gone, and the house left entirely empty, except an 
ancient woman, who came to take charge of the goods for 
the master of the family^s brother, who lived not far off, 
and who had not been sick. 

Many houses were then left desolate, all the people being- 
carried away dead, and especially in an alley farther on tlie 
same side beyond the bars, going in at the sign ^ of Moses 
and Aaron. There were several houses together, which 
they said had not one person left alive in them : and some 

' Of an iini. 



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173 



that died last in several of those houses were left a little 
too long before they were fetched out to be buried ; the 
reason of which was not, as some have written, very un- 
truly, that the living were not sufficient to bury the dead, 
but that the mortality was so great in the yard or alley, 
that there was nobody left to give notice to the buriers or 
sextons that there were any dead bodies there to be buried. 
It was said, how true I know not, that some of those bodies 
were so corrupted and so rotten, that it was with difficulty 
they were carried ; and, as the carts could not come any 
nearer than to the alley-gate in the High Street, it was so 
much the more difficult to bring them along ; but I am not 
certain how many bodies were then left. I am sure that 
ordinarily it was not so. 

As I have mentioned how the people were brought into 
a condition to despair of life, and abandoned themselves, 
so this very thing had a strange effect among us for three 
or four weeks, that is, it made them bold and venturous ; 
they were no more shy of one another, or restrained within 
doors, but went anywhere and everywhere, and began to 
converse ; one would say to another — " I do not ask you 
how you are, or say how I am ; it is certain we shall all go, 
so ^tis no matter who is sick or who is sound ; and so they 
ran desperately into any place or company. 

As it brought the people into public company, so it was 
surprising how it brought them to crowd into the churches ; 
they inquired no more into who ^ they sat near to, or far 
from, what offensive smells they met with, or what con- 
dition the people seemed to be in, but looking upon them- 
selves all as so many dead corpses, they came to the churches 
without the least caution, and crowded together as if their 
lives were of no consequence compared to the work which 
they came about there ; indeed, the zeal which they showed 
in coming, and the earnestness and affection they showed 
in their attention to what tliey heard, made it manifest 
what a vahie people vv'ould all put upon the worship of God 

1 Whom. 



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if they thonglit every day tliey attended at tlie cliurcli that 
it would be their last. Nor was it without other strange 
effects, for it took away all manner of prejudice at, or 
scruple about, the person whom they found in the pulpit 
when they came to the churches. It cannot be doubted but 
that many of the ministers of the parish churches were 
cut off among others in so common and dreadful a calam- 
ity ; and others had not courage enough to stand it, but 
removed into the country as they found means for escaj^e ; 
as, then, some parish churches were quite vacant and for- 
saken, the people made no scruple of desiring such dis- 
senters as had been a few years before ^ deprived of their 
livings, ^ by virtue of an act of parliament called the Act 
of Uniformity,^ to preach in the churches, nor did the 
church ministers in that case make any difficulty in accept- 
ing their assistance ; so that many of those whom they 
called silent ministers, had their mouths opened on this 
occasion, and preached publicly to the people. 

Here we may observe, and I hope it will not be amiss to 
take notice of it, that a near view of death would soon 
reconcile men of good principles one to another, and that 
it is chiefly owing to our easy situation in life, and our 
putting these things far from us, that our breaches are 
fomented, ill blood continued, prejudices, breach of charity 
and of christian union so much kept and so far carried on 
among us as it is : another plague year would reconcile all 
these differences, a close conversing with death, or with 
diseases that threaten death, would scum off the gall from 
our tempers, remove the animosities among us, and bring 
us to see with differing eyes than those ^ which we looked 
on things with before ; as the people who had been used to 
join with the church were reconciled at this time with the 
admitting the dissenters to preach to them, so the dissenters, 

1 In 1661. Their positions. 

^ The act restricted the functions of the clergy to such as took the 
sacrament in the antliorized Church of England. 
' Eyes differing from those. 



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175 



who^ with an uncommon prejudice^ had broken off from 
the communion of the Church of England, were now con- 
tent to come to their parish churches, and to conform to 
the worship which they did not approve of before ; but as 
the terror of the infection abated, those things all returned 
again to their less desirable channel, and to the course they 
were in before. 

I mention this but historically ; I have no mind to enter 
into arguments to move either or both sides to a more 
charitable compliance one with another ; I do not see that 
it is probable such a discourse would be either suitable or 
successful ; the breaches seem rather to widen, and tend to 
a widening farther than to closing ; and who am I, that I 
should think myself able to influence either one side or 
other ? But this I may repeat again, that it is evident 
death will reconcile us all — on the other side the grave we 
shall be all brethren again ; in heaven, whither I hope we 
may come from all parties and persuasions, we shall find 
neither prejudice nor scruple ; there we shall be of one 
principle and of one opinion. Why we cannot be content 
to go hand in hand to the place where we shall join heart 
and hand without the least hesitation and with the most 
complete harmony and affection ; I say, why we cannot do 
so here I can say nothing to, neither shall I say anything 
more of it, but that it remains to be lamented. 

I could dwell a great while upon the calamities of this 
dreadful time, and go on to describe the objects that 
appeared among us every day, the dreadful extravagances 
which the distraction of sick people drove them into ; how 
the streets began now to be fuller of frightful objects, and 
families to be made even a terror to themselves ; but, after 
I have told you, as I have above, that one man being tied 
in his bed, and finding no other way to deliver himself, set 
the bod on fire with his candle, wliich unliappily stood 
within liis reach, and burnt himself in bed ; and how 
another, by the insufferable torment he bore, danced and 



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sung naked in the streets, not knowing one ecstasy ' from 
another ; I say, after I have mentioned these things, what 
can be added more ? What can be said to represent the 
misery of these times more lively to the reader, or to give 
him a |)erfect idea of a more complicated distress ? 

I must acknowledge that this time was so terrible that I 
was sometimes at the end of all my resolutions, and that I 
had not the courage that I had at the beginning. As the 
extremity brought other people abroad, it drove me home, 
and, except having made my voyage down to Blackwall 
and Greenwich, as I have related, which was an excursion, 
I kept afterwards very much within doors, as I had for 
about a fortnight before. I have said already, that I re- 
pented several times that I had ventured to stay in town, 
and had not gone away with my brother and his family, 
but it was too late for that now ; and after I had retreated 
and stayed within doors a good while before my impatience 
led me abroad, then they called me, as I have said, to an 
ugly and dangerous office, which brought me out again ; 
but as that was expired while the height of the distemper 
lasted, I retired again, and continued close ten or twelve 
days more, during which many dismal spectacles repre- 
sented themselves in my view, out of my own windows, 
and in our own street, as that particularly from Harrow 
Alley, of the poor outrageous creature who danced and 
sung in his agony ; and many others there were. Scarce 
a day or a night passed over but some dismal thing or 
other happened at the end of that Harrow Alley, which 
was a place full of poor people, most of them belonging to 
the butchers, or to employments depending upon the 
butchery. 

Sometimes heaps and throngs of people would burst out 
of the alley, most of them women, making a dreadful 
clamour, mixed or compounded of screeches, cryings, and 
(idling one another, that we could not conceive what to 
make of it ; almost all the dead part of the night the dead- 
1 All ecstasy of pain from an ecstasy of joy. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



cart stood at the end of that alley, for if it went in, it could 
not well turn again and could go in hut a little way. 
There, I say, it stood to receive dead bodies ; and, as the 
churchyard was but a little way off, if it went away full it 
would soon be back again. It is impossible to describe the 
most horrible cries and noise the poor people would make 
at their bringing the dead bodies of their children and 
friends out to the cart ; and, by the number, one would 
have thought there had been none left behind, or that 
there were people enough for a small city living in those 
places. Several times they cried ^'^murder,^^ sometimes 
^^fire ; " but it was easy to perceive that it was all distrac- 
tion, and the complaints of distressed and distempered 
people. 

I believe it was everywhere thus at that time, for the 
plague raged for six or seven weeks beyond all that I have 
expressed, and came even to such a height, that, in the ex- 
tremity, they began to break into that excellent order, of 
which I have spoken so much in behalf of the magistrates, 
namely, that no dead bodies were seen in the streets, or 
burials in the daytime ; for there was a necessity in this ex- 
tremity, to bear with its being otherwise for a little while. 

One thing I cannot omit here, and, indeed, I thought it 
was extraordinary, at least it seemed a remarkable hand of 
divine justice ; viz., that all the predictors, astrologers, 
fortune-tellers, and what they called cunning men, con- 
jurors, and the like, calculators of nativities, and dreamers 
of dreams, and such people, were gone and vanished, not 
one of them was to be found. I am verily persuaded that 
a great number of them fell in the heat of the calamity, hav- 
ing ventured to stay upon the prospect of getting great es- 
tates ; and, indeed, their gain was but too great for a time, 
through the madness and folly of the people ; but now they 
were silent ; many of them went to their long home, not 
able to foretell their own fate, or to calculate their own na- 
tivities. Some have been critical ^ enough to say that every 
^ In the rare sense of " "bold." 

12 



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one of them died. I dare not affirm that ; hut this I must 
own, that I never heard of one of them that ever appeared 
after the calamity was over. 

But to return to my particular observations during this 
dreadful part of the visitation. I am now come, as I have 
said, to the month of September, which was the most dread- 
ful of its kind, I believe, that ever London saw ; for, by all 
the accounts which I have seen of the preceding visitations 
which have been in London, nothing has been like it ; the 
number in the weekly bill amounting to almost forty thou- 
. sands from the 22nd of August to the 26th of September, 
being but five weeks. The particulars of the bills are as 
follows ; viz. : 



From August the 22nd to the 29th 7,496 

To the 5th of September 8,252 

To the 12th 7,690 

To the 19th 8,297 

To the 26th 6,460 



38,195 

This was a prodigious number of itself ; but if I should 
add the reasons which I have to believe that this account 
was deficient, and how deficient it was, you would with me 
make no scruple to believe that there died above ten thou- 
sand a week for all those weeks, one week with another, and 
a proportion ^ for several weeks, both before and after. The 
confusion among the people, especially within the city, at 
that time, was inexpressible ; the terror was so great at last 
that the courage of the people appointed to carry away the 
dead began to fail them ; nay, several of them died, al- 
though they had the distemper before, and were recovered ; 
and some of them dropped down when they have been car- 
rying the bodies even at the pitside, and just ready to throw 
them in ; and this confusion was greater in the city, because 
* A good proportion of that number. 



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179 



they had flattered themselves with hopes of escaping, and 
thought the bitterness of death was past. One cart they 
told us, going up Shoreditch, was forsaken by the drivers, 
or being left to one man to drive, he died in the street, and 
the horses going on, overthrew the cart, and left the 
bodies, some thrown here, some there, in a dismal manner. 
Another cart was, it seems, found in the great pit in Fins- 
bury Fields, the driver being dead, or having been gone and 
abandoned it, and the horses running too near it, the cart 
fell in and drew the horses in also. It was suggested that 
the driver was thrown in with it, and that the cart fell 
upon him, by reason ^ his whip was seen to be in the pit 
among the bodies ; but that, I suppose, could not be certain. 

In our parish of Aldgate the dead -carts were several 
times, as I have heard, found standing at the churchyard 
gate, full of dead bodies ; but neither bellman, or driver, 
or any one else with it. Neither in these, or many other 
cases, did they know what bodies they had in their cart, for 
sometimes they were let down with ropes out of balconies 
and out of windows ; and sometimes the bearers brought 
them to the cart, sometimes other people ; nor, as the men 
themselves said, did they trouble themselves to keep any 
account of the numbers. 

The vigilance of the magistrate was now put to the ut- 
most trial ; and, it must be confessed, can never be enough 
acknowledged on this occasion ; also, whatever expense or 
trouble they were at, two things were never neglected in 
the city or suburbs either : — 

1. Provisions were always to be had in full plenty and 
the price not much raised neither, hardly worth speaking. 

2. No dead bodies lay unburied or uncovered ; and if 
anyone walked from one end of the city to another, no 
funeral, or sign of it, was to be seen in the daytime ; ex- 
cept a little, as I have said, in the first three weeks in 
September. 

* By reason that ; because. 



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This last article^, perhaps, will hardly be believed, when 
some accounts which others have published since that shall 
be seen ; wherein they say, that the dead lay unburied, 
which I am sure was utterly false ; at least, if it had been 
anywhere so, it must have been in houses where the living 
were gone from the dead, having found means, as I have 
observed, to escape, and where no notice was given to the 
officers. All which amounts to nothing at all in the case 
in hand ; for this I am positive in, having myself been 
employed a little in the direction of that part of the parish 
in which I lived, and where as great a desolation was 
made, in proportion to the number of the inhabitants, as 
was anywhere. I say, I am sure that there were no dead 
bodies remained unburied ; that is to say, none that the 
proper officers knew of, none for want of people to carry 
them otf, and buriers to put them into the ground and 
cover them ; and this is sufficient to the argument ; for 
what might lie in houses and holes, as in Moses and 
Aaron Alley, is nothing, for it is most certain they were 
buried as soon as they were found. As to the first article, 
namely, of provisions, the scarcity or dearness, though I 
have mentioned it before, and shall speak of it again, yet I 
must observe here, 

(1.) The price of bread in particular was not much 
raised ; for in the beginning of the year, viz., in the 1st 
week in March, the penny wheaten loaf was ten ounces and 
a half ; and in the height of the contagion it was to be had 
at nine ounces and a half, and never dearer, no, not all 
that season. And about the beginning of November, it 
was sold at ten ounces and a half again, the like of which, 
I believe, was never heard of in any city, under so dread- 
ful a visitation, before. 

(2.) Neither was there, which I wondered much at, any 
want of bakers, or ovens kept open to supply tlie people 
with bread : but this was, indeed, alleged by some fam- 
ilies, viz., that their maid-servants going to the bakehouses 
with their dough to be baked, which was then the custom. 



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181 



sometimes came home with the sickness, that is to say, the 
plague upon them. 

In all this dreadful visitation, there were, as I have said 
before, but two pest-houses made use of, viz., one in the 
fields beyond Old Street, and one in Westminster ; neither 
was there any compulsion used in carrying people thither. 
Indeed, there was no need of compulsion in the case, for 
there were thousands of poor distressed people, who, hav- 
ing no help, or conveniences, or supplies, but of charity, 
would have been very glad to have been carried thither, 
and been taken care of, which, indeed, Avas the only thing 
that, I think, was wanting in the whole public manage- 
ment of the city ; seeing nobody was here allowed to be 
brought to the pest-honse, but where money was given, or 
security for money, either at their introducing,^ or upon 
their being cured and sent out ; for very many were sent 
out again whole, and very good physicians were appointed 
to those places, so that many people did very well there, 
of which I shall make mention again. The principal sort 
of people sent thither were, as I have said, servants, who 
got the distemper by going of errands to fetch necessaries 
for the families where they lived ; and who, in that case, 
if they came home sick, were removed, to preserve the rest 
of the house ; and they were so well looked after there, in 
all the time of the visitation, that there was but 156 buried 
in all at the London pest-house, and 159 at that of West- 
minster. 

By having more pest-houses, I am far from meaning a 
forcing all people into such places. Had the shutting up 
of houses been omitted, and the sick hurried out of their 
dwellings to pest-houses, as some proposed, it seems, at 
that time as well as since, it would certainly have been 
much worse than it was ; the very removing of the sick 
would have been a spreading of the infection, and the 
rather because that removing could not ofTectually clear 
' Tlie patients' being introduced. 



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the house where the sick person Avas of the distemper ; and 
the rest of the family, being then left at liberty, would 
certainly spread it among others. 

The methods also in private families, which would have 
been universally used to have concealed the distemper, and 
to have concealed, the persons being sick, would have been 
such that the distemper would sometimes have seized a 
whole family before any visitors or examiners could have 
known of it. On the other hand, the prodigious numbers 
which would have been sick at a time would have exceeded 
all the capacity of public pest-houses to receive them, or 
of public officers to discover and remove them. 

This was well considered in those days, and I have heard 
them talk of it often. The magistrates had enough to do 
to bring people to submit to having their houses shut up, 
and many ways they deceived the watchmen and got out, 
as I observed ; but that difficulty made it apparent that 
they would have found it impracticable to have gone the 
other way to work; for they could never have forced the 
sick people out of their beds, and out of their dwellings : 
it must not have been my lord mayor^s officers, but an 
army of officers, that must have attempted it ; and the 
people, on the other hand, would have been enraged and 
desperate, and would have killed those that should have 
offered to have meddled with them, or with their children 
and relations, whatever had befallen them for it ; so that 
they would have made the people, who, as it was, were in 
^he most terrible distraction imaginable — I say, they would 
yiave made them stark mad ! whereas the magistrates 
found it proper on several occasions to treat them with 
lenity and compassion, and not with violence and terror, 
such as dragging the sick out of their houses, or obliging 
them to remove themselves, would have been. 

This leads me again to mention the time when the plague 
first began, that is to say, when it became certain that it 
would spread over the whole town, when, as T have said, 



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183 



the better sort of people first took the alarm^ and began to 
hurry themselves out of town ; it was true, as I observed 
in its place, that the throng was so great, and the coaches, 
horses, waggons, and carts were so many, driving and drag- 
ging the people away, that it looked as if all the city was 
running away, and had any regulations been published 
that had been terrifying at that time, especially such 
as would pretend to dispose of the people otherwise than 
they would dispose of themselves, it would have put both 
the city and suburbs into the utmost confusion. 

The magistrates wisely caused the people to be encour- 
aged, made very good by-laws ^ for the regulating the citi- 
zens, keeping good order in the streets, and making every- 
thing as eligible as possible to all sorts of people. 

In the first place, the lord mayor and the sheriffs, the 
court of aldermen, and a certain number of the common- 
councilmen, or their deputies, came to a resolution, and 
published it, viz., that they would not quit the city them- 
selves, but that they would be always at hand for the pre- 
serving good order in every place, and for doing justice on 
all occasions ; as also for the distributing the public charity 
to the poor ; and, in a word, for the doing the duty and 
discharging the trust reposed in them by the citizens, to 
the utmost of their power. 

In pursuance of these orders, the lord mayor, sheriffs, 
etc., held councils every day, more or less, for making such 
dispositions as they found needful for preserving the civil 
peace ; and though they used the people with all possible 
gentleness and clemency, yet all manner of presumptuous 
rogues, such as thieves, housebreakers, plunderers of the 
dead or of the sick, were duly punished, and several 
declarations were continually published by the lord mayor 
and court of aldermen against such. 

Also, all constables and churchwardens were enjoined to 
stay in the city upon severe penalties, or to depute such 
able and sufficient housekeepers as the deputy-aldermen, 
' Here, local or municipal laws. 



184 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



or common-conncilmeii of the j^recinct should approve, and 
for whom they should give security ; and also security in 
case of mortality/ that they would forthwith constitute 
other constables in their stead. 

These things re-established the minds of the people very 
much ; especially in the first of their fright, when they 
talked of making so universal a flight that the city would 
have been in danger of being entirely deserted of its inhab- 
itants, except the poor, and the country of being plundered 
and laid waste by the multitude. Nor were the magistrates 
deficient in performing their part as boldly as they prom- 
ised it ; for my lord mayor and the sheriffs were continually 
in the streets, and at places of the greatest danger ; and 
though they did not care for having too great a resort of 
people crowding about them, yet^ in emergent cases, they 
never denied the people access to them, and heard with 
patience all their grievances and com|)laints ; my lord 
mayor had a low gallery, built on purpose in his hall, 
where he stood, a little removed from the crowd, when any 
complaint came to be heard, that he might appear with as 
much safety as possible. 

Likewise, the proper officers, called my lord mayor's 
officers, constantly attended in their turns, as they were in 
waiting ; and if any of them were sick or infected, as some 
of them were, others were instantly employed to fill up and 
officiate in their places, till it was known whether the 
other should live or die. 

In like manner, the sheriffs and aldermen did, in their 
several stations and wards, where they were placed by of- 
fice, and the sheriff's officers or Serjeants were appointed 
to receive orders from the respective aldermen in their 
turn ; so that justice was executed in all cases without in- 
terruption. In the next place, it was one of their partic- 
ular cares to see the orders for the freedom of the markets 
observed ; and in this part, either the lord mayor, or one 
or both of the sheriffs, were every nuirket-day on liorse- 

1 Deatli. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



185 



back to see their orders executed, and to see that the coun- 
try people had all possible encouragement and freedom in 
their coming to the markets, and going back again ; and 
that no nuisance or frightful object should be seen in the 
streets to terrify them, or make them unwilling to come. 
Also, the bakers were taken under particular order, and 
the master of the Bakers^ Company was, with his court of 
assistants, directed to see the order of my lord mayor for 
their regulation put in execution, and the due assize^ of 
bread, which was weekly appointed by my lord mayor, ob- 
served ; and all the bakers were obliged to keep their 
ovens going constantly, on pain of losing the privileges of 
a freeman ^ of the city of London. 

By this means, bread was always to be had in plenty, 
and as cheap as usual, as I said above ; and provisions 
were never wanting in the markets, even to such a degree 
that I often wondered at it, and reproached myself with 
being so timorous and cautious in stirring abroad, when 
the country people came freely and boldly to market, as if 
there had been no manner of infection in the city, or dan- 
ger of catching it. 

It was, indeed, one admirable piece of conduct in the 
said magistrates, that the streets were kept constantly clear 
and free from all manner of frightful objects, dead bodies, 
or any such things as were indecent or unpleasant ; unless 
where anybody fell down suddenly, or died in the streets, 
as I have said above, and these were generally covered with 
some cloth or blanket, or removed into the next church- 
yard till night. All the needful works that carried terror 
with them, that were both dismal and dangerous, were 
done in the night ; if any diseased bodies were removed or 
dead bodies buried, or infected clothes burnt, it was done 
in the night ; and all the bodies which were thrown into 
the great pits in the several churchyards or burying- 

' Ordinance in regard to weight, price, etc. 

^ Members of the various guilds or trade-companies voted for cer- 
tain public officers and had other similar privileges. 



186 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



grounds, as has been observed, were so removed in the 
night ; and everything was covered and closed before day. 
So that in the daytime there was not the least signal of 
the calamity to be seen or heard of, except what was to be 
observed from the emptiness of the streets, and sometimes 
from the passionate outcries and lamentations of the people, 
out at their windows, and from the numbers of houses and 
shops shut up. 

Nor was the silence and emptiness of the streets so much 
in the city as in the out-parts ; except just at one partic- 
ular time, when, as I have mentioned, the plague came 
east, and spread over all the city. It was, indeed, a merci- 
ful disposition of God that, as the plague began at one end 
of the town first, as has been observed at large, ^ so it pro- 
ceeded progressively to other parts, and did not come on 
this way, or eastward, till it had spent its fury in the west 
part of the town ; and so as it came on one way, it abated 
another ; for example : — 

It began at St. Gileses and the Westminster end of the 
town, and it was in its height in all that part by about the 
middle of July, viz., in St. Gileses in the Fields, St. An- 
drew's, Holborn, St. Clement's Danes, St. Martin's in 
the Fields, and in Westminster : the latter end of July it 
decreased in those parishes, and coming east, it increased 
prodigiously in Cripplegate, St. Sepulchre's, St. James's, 
Clerkenwell, and St. Bride's and Aldersgate. While it 
was in all these parishes, the city and all the parishes of 
the South wark side of the water, and all Stepney, White- 
chapel, Aldgate, Wapping, and Eatclilf, Avere very little 
touched ; so that people went about their business un- 
concerned, carried on their trades, kept open their shops, 
and conversed freely with one another in all the city, the 
east and north-east suburbs, and in Southwark, almost as 
if the plague had not been among us. 

Even when the north and north-west suburbs Avere fully 
1 At length. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 187 

infected, viz., Cripplegate, Clerkenwell, Bishopsgate, and 
Shoreditch, yet still all the rest were tolerably well : for 
example : — 

From the 25th July to the 1st of August, the bill stood 
thus of all diseases : — 



St. Giles^ Cripplegate ..... 554 

St. Sepulchre's .250 

Clerkenwell 103 

Bishopsgate .116 

Shoreditch 110 

Stepney Parish 127 

Aldgate 92 

Whitechapel 104 

All the 97 parishes within the walls . . 228 
All the parishes in Southwark . . . 205 



1889 

So that, in short, there died more that week in the two 
parishes of Cripplegate and St. Sepulchre's by 48, than all ^ 
the city, all the east suburbs, and all the Southwark par- 
ishes put together : this caused the reputation of the city's 
health to continue all over England, and especially in the 
counties and markets adjacent, from whence our supply of 
provisions chiefly came, even much longer than that health 
itself continued ; for when the people came into the streets 
from the country by Shoreditch and Bishopsgate, or by 
Old Street and Smithfield, they would see the out-streets 
empty, and the houses and shops shut, and the few people 
that were stirring there walk in the middle of the streets ; 
but when they came within the city, there things looked 
better, and the markets and shops were open, and the 
people walking about the streets as usual, though not quite 
so many ; and this continued till the latter end of August 
and the beginning of Septemljer. 

• In all. 



188 JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



But then the case altered quite, the distemper abated in 
the west and north-west parishes, and the weight of the 
infection lay on the city and the eastern suburbs, and the 
Southwark side, and this in a frightful manner. 

Then indeed the city began to look dismal, shops to be 
shut, and the streets desolate ; in the High Street, indeed, 
necessity made people stir abroad on many occasions ; 
and there would be in the middle of the day a pretty 
many^ people, but in the mornings and evenings scarce 
any to be seen even there, no, not in Cornhill and Cheap- 
side. 

These observations of mine were abundantly confirmed 
by the weekly bills of mortality for those weeks, an abstract 
of which, as they respect the parishes which I have men- 
tioned, and as they make the calculations I speak of very 
evident, take^ as follows : — 

The weekly bill which makes out this decrease of the 
burials in the west and north side of the city^ stands 
thus : — 



St. Giles's, Cripplegate 456 

St. Giles's in the Fields 140 

Clerkenwell 77 

St. Sepulchre's 214 

St. Leonard, Shoreditch ..... 183 

Stepney Parish . . . . . .716 

Aldgate ........ 623 

Whitechapel 532 

In the 97 parishes within the walls . . . 1493 

In the 8 parishes on Southwark side . . 1636 

6070 



Here is a strange change of things, indeed, and a sad 
change it was, and had it held for two months more than 
it did, very few people would have been left alive ; but 

' A good many. 2 That is, you (tlie reader), take find). 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



189 



then such, I say, was the merciful disposition of God, that 
when it was thus, the west and north part, which had been 
so dreadfully visited at first, grew, as you see, much better ; 
and as the people disappeared here, they began to look 
abroad again there ; and the next week or two altered it 
still more, that is, more to the encouragement of the other 
part of the town ; for example : — 



From the 19th of September to the 26th, 



St. G-iles's, Oripplegate 277 

St. Giles's in the Fields 119 

Clerkenwell 76 

St. Sepulchre's ...... 193 

St. Leonard, Shoreditch ..... 146 

Stepney Parish . . . . . .616 

Aldgate ........ 496 

Whitechapel 346 

In the 97 parishes within the walls . . . 1268 

In the 8 parishes on Southwark side . . 1390 



4927 



From the 26th of September to the 3d of October : — 



St. Giles's, Oripplegate 196 

St. Giles's in the Fields 95 

Clerkenwell ....... 48 

St. Sepulchre's 137 

St. Leonard, Shoreditch 128 

Stepney Parish . . . . . .674 

Aldgate 372 

Whitechapel 328 

In the 97 parishes within the wall . . 1149 

In the 8 parishes on Southwark side . . 1201 



4328 



190 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



And now the misery of the city, and of the said east and 
south parts, was complete indeed ; for, as you see, the 
weight of the distemper lay upon those parts, that is to 
say, the city, the eight parishes over the river, with the 
parishes of Aldgate, Whitechapel, and Stepney, and this 
was the time that the bills came up to such a monstrous 
height as that I mentioned before ; and that eight or nine, 
and, as I believe, ten or twelve thousand a week, died ; 
for it is my settled opinion, that they ^ never could come 
at any just account of the numbers, for the reasons which 
I have given already. 

Nay, one of the most eminent physicians, who has since 
published in Latin an account of those times, and of his ob- 
servations, says, that in one week there died twelve thou- 
sand people, and that particularly there died four thou- 
sand in one night : though I do not remember that there 
ever was any such particular night so remarkably fatal as 
that such a number died in it : however, all this confirms 
what I have said above of the uncertainty of the bills of 
mortality, etc., of which I shall say more hereafter. 

And here let me take leave to enter again, though it 
may seem a repetition of circumstances, into a description 
of the miserable condition of the city itself, and of those 
parts where I lived, at this particular time. The city and 
those other parts, notwithstanding the great numbers of 
people that were gone into the country, was ^ vastly full of 
people ; and perhaps the fuller, because people had, for a 
long time, a strong belief that the plague would not come 
into the city, nor into Southwark, no, nor into AYapping 
or Eatclilf at all ; nay, such was the assurance of the peo- 
ple on that head, that many removed from the suburbs on 
the west and north sides, into those eastern and south 
sides as for safety, and, as I verily believe, carried the 
plague amongst them there, perhaps sooner than they 
would otherwise have had it. 

' The autliorities. " Were. 



JOURNAL OF THB: PLAGUE 



191 



Here, also, I ought to leave a further remark for the use of 
posterity, concerning the manner of people's infecting one 
another ; namely, that it was not the sick people only 
from whom the plague was immediately received by others 
that were sound, but the well. To explain myself ; by the 
sick people, I mean those who were known to be sick, had 
taken their beds, had been under cure, or had swellings or 
tumours upon them, and the like ; these everybody could 
beware of ; they were either in their beds, or in such con- 
dition as could not be concealed. 

By the well, I mean such as had received the contagion, 
and had it really upon them and in their blood, yet did not 
show the consequences of it in their countenances ; nay, 
even were not sensible of it themselves, as many were not 
for several days. These breathed death in every place, 
and upon everybody who came near them ; nay, their very 
clothes retained the infection, their hands would infect the 
things they touched, especially if they were warm and 
sweaty, and they were generally apt to sweat too. 

Now, it was impossible to know these people, nor did 
they sometimes, as I have said, know themselves to be in- 
fected. These were the people that so often dropped 
down and fainted in the streets ; for oftentimes they would 
go about the streets to the last, till on a sudden they would 
sweat, grow faint, sit down at a door, and die. It is true, 
finding themselves thus, they would struggle hard to get 
home to their own doors, or, at other times, would be just 
able to go into their houses, and die instantly ; other times 
they would go about till they had the very tokens come out 
upon them, and yet not know it, and would die in an hour 
or two after they came home, but be well as long as they 
were abroad. These were the dangerous people, these were 
the people of whom the well people ought to have been 
afraid ; but then, on tlie other side, it was impossible to 
know them. 

And this is the reason why it is impossible in a visita- 
tion to prevent the spreading of the plague by tlic utmost 



192 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



human vigilance^ viz., that it is impossible to know the 
infected people from the sound, or that the infected peo- 
ple should perfectly know themselves. I knew a man 
who conversed ^ freely in London all the season of the 
plague in 1665, and kept about him an antidote or cordial, 
on purpose to take when he thought himself in any danger, 
and he had such a rule to know, or have warning of the 
danger by, as indeed I never met with before or since ; 
how far it may be depended on I know not. He had a 
wound in his leg, and whenever he came among any people 
that were not sound, and the infection began to affect him, 
he said he could know it by that signal, viz., that the 
wound in his leg would smart, and look pale and white ; 
so as soon as ever he felt it smart it was time for him to 
withdraw, or to take care of himself, taking his drink, 
which he always carried about him for that purpose. Now 
it seems he found his wound would smart many times 
when he was in company with such who thought them- 
selves to be sound, and who appeared so to one another ; 
but he would presently rise up, and say publicly, — 
' ' Friends, here is somebody in the room that has the 
plague ; " and so would immediately break up the com- 
pany. This was, indeed, a faithful monitor to all people, 
that the plague is not to be avoided by those that converse 
promiscuously in a town infected, and people have it when 
they know it not, and that they likewise give it to others 
when they know not that they have it themselves ; and in 
this case shutting up the well or removing the sick will not 
do it, unless they can go back and shut up all those that 
the sick had conversed with, even before they knew them- 
selves to be sick, and none knows how far to carry that 
back, or where to stop ; for none knows when, or where, 
or how they may have received the infection, or from 
whom. 

This I take to be the reason which makes so many peo- 
ple talk of the air being corrupted and infected, and that 
' Held intercourse. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



193 



they need not be cautious of whom they converse with, for 
that the contagion was in the air. I have seen them in 
strange agitations and surprises on this account. ^' I have 
never come near any infected body ! " says the disturbed 
person, " I have conversed with none but sound healthy 
people, and yet I have gotten the distemper \" — I am 
sure I am struck from heaven/" says another, and he falls 
to the serious part.^ Again, the first goes on exclaiming, 
^' I have come near no infection, or any infected person ; I 
am sure it is in the air ; we draw in death when we 
breathe, and therefore it is the hand of God : there is no 
withstanding it."" And this at last made many people, be- 
ing hardened to the danger, grow less concerned at it, and 
less cautious towards the latter end of the time, and when 
it was come to its height, than they were at first ; then, 
with a kind of a Turkish predestinarianism they would 
say, if it pleased God to strike them it was all one whether 
they went abroad or stayed at home, they could not escape 
it, and therefore they went boldly about, even into infect- 
ed houses and infected company, visited sick people, and, 
in short, lay in the beds with their wives or relations when 
they were infected ; and what was the consequence but the 
same that is the consequence in Turkey, and in those 
countries where they do those things ? namely, that they 
were infected too, and died by hundreds and thousands. 

I would be far from lessening the awe of the judg- 
ments of God, and the reverence to his providence, which 
ought always to be on our minds on such occasions as 
these ; doubtless the visitation itself is a stroke from 
heaven upon a city, or country, or nation where it falls, a 
messenger of his vengeance, and a loud call to that nation, 
or country, or city, to humiliation and repentance, accord- 
ing to that of the prophet Jeremiah xviii. 7, 8 : At what 
instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning 
a kingdom, to pluck up, and pull down, and destroy it : if 
that nation against whom I have pronounced turn from 

' Turns to pious thouglits 

V6 



194 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAQUE 



their evil, I will repent of tlie evil that I thought to do 
unto them/^ Now to prompt due impressions of the awe 
of Grod on the minds of men on such occasions, and not to 
lessen them, it is that ^ I have left those minutes upon 
record. 

I say, therefore, I reflect upon no man for putting the 
reason of those things upon the immediate hand of God, 
and the appointment and direction of his providence ; nay, 
on the contrary, there were many wonderful deliverances of 
persons from infection, and deliverances of persons when 
infected, which intimate singular and remarkable provi- 
dence in the particular instances to which they refer ; and 
I esteem my own deliverance to be one next to miraculous, 
and to record it with thankfulness. 

But when I am speaking of the plague as a distemper 
arising from natural causes, we must consider it as it was 
really propagated by natural means, nor is it at all the less 
a judgment for its being under the conduct of human causes 
and effects ; for as the divine power has formed the whole 
scheme of nature, and maintains nature in its course, so 
the same power thinks fit to let ^ his own actings with men, 
whether of mercy or judgment, to go on in the ordinary 
course of natural causes, and he is pleased to act by those 
natural causes as the ordinary means ; excepting and 
reserving to himself nevertheless a power to act in a 
supernatural way when he sees occasion. Now it is evi- 
dent that, in the case of an infection, there is no apparent 
extraordinary occasion for supernatural operation, but the 
ordinary course of things appears sufficiently armed, and 
made capable of all the effects that heaven usually directs 
by a contagion. Among these causes and effects this of 
the secret conveyance of infection, imperceptible and un- 
avoidable, is more than sufficient to execute the fierceness 
of divine vengeance, without putting it upon supernat- 
urals ^ and miracles. 



* Allow. 



' It is to prompt 



that I have left. 

Supernatural things. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



195 



The acute, penetrating nature of the disease itself was 
such, and the infection was received so imperceptibly, that 
the most exact caution could not secure us while in the 
place ; but I must be allowed to believe, and I have so many 
examples fresh in my memory, to convince me of it, that I 
think none can resist their evidence ; I say, I must be 
allowed to believe, that no one in this whole nation ever 
received the sickness or infection but who received it 
in the ordinary way of infection from somebody, or the 
clothes, or touch, or stench of somebody that was infected 
before. 

The manner of its first coming to London proves this 
also, viz., by goods brought over from Holland, and brought 
thither from the Levant ; the first breaking of it out in a 
house in Longacre, where those goods were carried and 
first opened ; its spreading from that house to other houses 
by the visible unwary conversing with those who were 
sick, and the infecting the parish officers who were employed 
about persons dead, and the like. These ^ are known au- 
thorities for this great foundation point, that it went on 
and proceeded from person to person, and from house to 
house, and no otherwise. In the first house that was in- 
fected there died four persons ; a neighbour, hearing the 
mistress of the first house was sick, went to visit her, and 
went home and gave the distemper to her family, and died, 
and all her household. A minister called to pray with the 
first sick person in the second house, was said to sicken 
immediately, and die, with several more in his house. 
Then the physicians began to consider, for they did not at 
first dream of a general contagion ; but the physicians being 
sent to inspect the bodies, they assured the people that it 
was neither more or less than the plague, with all its 
terrifying particulars, and that it threatened an universal 
infection, so many people having already conversed with 
the sick or distempered, and having, as might be supposed, 
' These facts. 



196 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



received infection from them, that it would be impossible 
to 23ut a stop to it. 

Here the opinion of the physicians agreed with my ob- 
servation afterwards, namely, that the danger was spread- 
ing insensibly ; for the sick could infect none but those 
that came within reach of the sick person, but that one 
man, who may have really received the infection, and 
knows it not, but goes abroad and about as a sound per- 
son, may give the plague to a thousand people, and they to 
greater numbers in proportion, and neither the person giv- 
ing the infection, nor the persons receiving it, know any- 
thing of it, and perhaps not feel the effects of it for several 
days after. For example : — 

Many persons, in the time of this visitation, never per- 
ceived that they were infected, till they found, to their un- 
speakable surprise, the tokens come out upon them, after 
which they seldom lived six hours ; for those spots they 
called the tokens were really gangrene spots, or mortified 
flesh, in small knobs as broad as a little silver penny, and 
hard as a piece of callus or horn ; so that Avhen the disease 
was come up to that length, there was nothing could follow 
but certain death ; and yet, as I said, they knew nothing 
of their being infected, nor found themselves so much as 
out of order, till those mortal marks were upon them. 
But everybody must allow that they were infected in a 
high degree before, and must have been so some time ; and, 
consequently, their breath, their sweat, their very clothes 
were contagious for many days before. 

This occasioned a vast variety of cases, whicli physicians 
would have much more opportunity to remember than I ; 
but some came within the compass of my observation or 
hearing, of which I shall name a few. 

A certain citizen, wlio had lived safe and untouched till 
the month of September, when tlie weight of the distemper 
lay more in the city tluin it had done before, was mighty 
cheerful, and something too bold, as I think it was, in his 
talk of how secure he was, how cautious he had been, and 



APRIL2013 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 19? 

how he had never come near any sick body. Says another 
citizen, a neighbour of his, to him, one day, " Do not be 

too confident, Mr. ; it is hard to say who is sick and 

who is well ; for we see men alive and well to outward ap- 
pearance one hour, and dead the next/^ ^^That is true,^^ 
says the first man (for he was not a man presumptuously 
secure, but had escaped a long while ; and men, as I have 
said above, especially in the city, began to be over-easy on 
that score). ''That is true,'' says he, "I do not tliink 
myself secure, but I hope I have not been in company with 
any person that there has been any danger in.'' " JN'o ! " 
says his neighbour ; " was ^ not you at the Bull Head tavern 

in Gracechurch Street, with Mr. , the night before 

last ?" " Yes," says the first, "I was, but there was no- 
body there that we had any reason to think dangerous." 
Upon which his neighbour said no more, being unwilling 
to surprise him ; but this made him more inquisitive, and, 
as his neighbour appeared backward, he was the more im- 
patient ; and in a kind of warmth, says he aloud, " Why, 
he is not dead, is he ? " Upon which his neighbour still 
was silent, but cast up his eyes, and said something to him- 
self ; at which the first citizen turned pale, and said no 
more but this, Then I am a dead man too ! " and went 
home immediately, and sent for a neighbouring apothecary 
to give him something preventive, for he had not yet found 
himself ill ; but the apothecary opening his breast, fetched 
a sigh, and said no more but this, " Look up to God ; " and 
the man died in a few hours. 

Now let any man judge, from a case like this, if it is 
possible for the regulations of magistrates, either by shut- 
ting up the sick or removing them, to stop an infection 
which spreads itself from man to man even while they are 
perfectly well and insensible of its approach, and may be 
so for many days. 

It may be proper to ask here how long it may be sup- 
posed men might have the seeds of the contagion in them 

' Were. 



198 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



before it discovered itself in this fatal manner^, and how 
long they might go about seemingly whole^ and yet be con- 
tagious to all those that came near them. I believe the 
most experienced physicians cannot answer this question 
directly any more than I can ; and something an ordinary 
observer may take notice of, which may pass their observa- 
tion. The opinion of physicians abroad seems to be, that 
it may lie dormant in the spirits, or in the blood-vessels, a 
very considerable time ; why else do they exact a quaran- 
tine of those who come into their harbours and ports from 
suspected places ? Forty days is, one would think, too 
long for nature to struggle with such an enemy as this and 
not conquer it or yield to it ; but I could not think by my 
own observation that they can be infected, so as to be 
contagious to others, above fifteen or sixteen days at far- 
thest ; and on that score it was, that when a house was 
shut up in the city, and any one had died of the plague, 
but nobody appeared to be ill in the family for sixteen or 
eighteen days after, they were not so strict but that they 
would connive at their going privately abroad ; nor would 
people be much afraid of them afterwards, but rather think 
they were fortified the better, having not been vulnerable 
when the enemy was in their house ; but we sometimes 
found it had lain much longer concealed. 

Upon the foot of all these observations I must say, that, 
though Providence seemed to direct my conduct to be oth- 
erwise, it is my opinion, and I must leave it as a prescrip- 
tion, viz., that the best physic against the plague is to run 
away from it. I know people encourage themselves by 
saying, Grod is able to keep us in the midst of danger, and 
able to overtake us when we think ourselves out of danger ; 
and this kept thousands in the town, whose carcasses went 
into the great pits by cartloads ; and who, if they had fled 
from the danger, had, I believe, been safe from the disaster ; 
at least, ^tis probable they had been safe. 

And were tliis very fundamental only duly considered by 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



199 



the people on any future occasion of this or the like nat- 
ure^ I am persuaded it would put them upon quite differ- 
ent measures for managing the people from those that they 
took in 1665, or than any that have been taken abroad, 
that I have heard of ; in a word, they would consider of 
separating the people into smaller bodies, and removing 
them in time farther from one another, and not let such a 
contagion as this, which is indeed chiefly dangerous to col- 
lected bodies of people, find a million of people in a body 
together, as was very near the case before, and would cer- 
tainly be the case if it should ever appear again. 

The plague, like a great fire, if a few houses only are 
contiguous where it happens, can only burn a few ^ houses ; 
or if it begins in a single, or, as we call it, a lone house, 
can only burn that lone house where it begins. But if it 
begins in a close-built town or city, and gets ahead, there 
its fury increases, it rages over the whole place, and con- 
sumes all it can reach. 

I could propose many schemes on the foot of which the 
government of this city, if ever they should be under the 
apprehension of such another enemy (God forbid they 
should), might ease themselves of the greatest part of the 
dangerous people that belong to them ; I mean such as the 
begging, starving, labouring poor, and among them chiefly 
those who, in a case of siege, are called the useless mouths ; 
who, being then prudently, and to their own advantage, 
disposed of, and the wealthy inhabitants disposing of 
themselves, and of their servants and children, the city, 
and its adjacent parts would be so effectually evacuated that 
there would not be above a tenth part of its people left 
together, for the disease to take hold upon : but suppose 
them to be a fifth part, and that two hundred and fifty 
thousand people were left, and if it did seize upon them, 
they would by their living so much at large be much better 
prepared to defend themselves against the infection, and 
be less liable to the effects of it than if the same number 

1 Can burn only a few. 



200 



JOURXAL OF THE PLAQUE 



of people lived close together in oue smaller city, sucli as 
Dublin, or Amsterdam, or the like. 

It is true, hundreds, yea, thousands of families fled away 
at this last plague ; but then of them many fled too late, 
and not only died in their flight, but carried the distemper 
with them into the countries where they went, and infected 
those whom they went among for safety ; which confounded 
the thing, and made that be a propagation of the distemper 
which was the best means to prevent it ; and this, too, is 
evident ^ of it, and brings me back to what I only hinted 
at before, but must speak more fully to ^ here ; namely, 
that men went about apj)arently well, many days after they 
had the taint of the disease in their vitals, and after their 
spirits were so seized as that they could never escape it ; 
and that all the while they did so they were dangerous to 
others ; I say, this proves that so it was ; for such people 
infected the very towns they went through, as well as the 
families they went among. And it was by that means that 
almost all the great towns in England had the distemper 
among them, more or less ; and always they would tell you 
such a. Londoner or such a Londoner brought it down. 

It must not be omitted, that when I speak of those peoj^le 
who were really thus dangerous, I suppose them to be 
utterly ignorant of their own condition ; for if they really 
knew their circumstances to be such as indeed they were, 
they must have been a kind of wilful murderers, if they 
would have gone abroad among healthy people, and it would 
have verifled indeed the suggestion which I mentioned 
above, and which I thought seemed untrue, viz. , that the 
infected people were utterly careless as to giving the in- 
fection to others, and rather forward to do it than not ; 
and I believe it was partly from this very thing that they 
raised that suggestion, which I hope was not really true in 
fact. 

I confess no particular case is sufficient to prove a gen- 
eral,^ but I could name several people within the knowledge 
• Evidence. ' In regard to. ^ A general proposition. 



APRIL2013 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 201 

of some of their neighbours and families yet living, who 
showed the contrary to an extreme. One man, the master 
of a family in my neighbourhood, having had the distemper, 
he thought he had it given him by a poor workman whom 
he employed, and whom he went to his house to see, or 
went for some work that he wanted to have finished ; and 
he had some apprehensions even while he was at the poor 
workman's door, but did not discover it^ fully, but the 
next day it discovered itself, and he was taken very ill ; 
upon which he immediately caused himself to be carried 
into an outbuilding which he had in his yard, and where 
there was a chamber over a workhouse, the man being a 
brazier. Here he lay, and here he died; and would be 
tended by none of his neighbours, but by a nurse from 
abroad ; and would not suffer his wife, nor children, nor 
servants, to come up into the room, lest they should be in- 
fected, but sent them his blessing and prayers for them by 
the nurse, who spoke it to them at a distance ; and all this 
for fear of giving them the distemper, and without which 
he knew, as they were kept up, they could not have it.^ 

And here I must observe also that the plague, as I sup- 
pose all distempers do, operated in a different manner on 
differing constitutions. Some were immediately over- 
whelmed with it, and it came to violent fevers, vomitings, 
insufferable headaches, pains in the back, and so up to 
ravings and ragings with those pains : others with swell- 
ings and tumours in the neck or groin, or armpits, which, 
till they could be broke, put them into insufferable agonies 
and torment ; while others, as I have observed, were silently 
infected, the fever preying upon their spirits insensibly, 
and they seeing little of it till they fell into swooning, and 
faintings, and death without pain. 

^ Did not discover that he had the plague. 
That is, as I understand it, *' and he knew that, as they were kept 
out of his chamber, they could not have the plague without personal 
contact." 



202 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAQUE 



I am not physician enough to enter into the particular 
reasons and manner of these differing effects of one and 
the same distemper, and of its differing operation in sev- 
eral bodies ; nor is it my business here to record the obser- 
vations which I really made, because the doctors themselves 
have done that part much more effectually than I can do, 
and because my opinion may, in some things, differ from 
theirs. I am only relating what I know, or have heard, or 
believe, of the particular cases, and what fell within the 
compass of my view, and the different nature of the infec- 
tion as it appeared in the particular cases which I have re- 
lated ; but this may be added, too, that though the former 
sort of those cases, namely, those openly visited, were the 
worst for themselves as to pain, I mean those that had such 
fevers, vomitings, headaches, pains, and swellings, because 
they died in such a dreadful manner : yet the latter had 
the worst state of the disease, for in the former they fre- 
quently recovered, especially if the swellings broke ; but the 
latter was inevitable death, no cure, no help could be pos- 
sible, nothing could follow but death ; and it was worse also 
to others, because, as above, it secretly and unperceived by 
others or by themselves, communicated death to those they 
conversed with, the penetrating poison insinuating itself 
into their blood in a manner which it was impossible to 
describe, or indeed conceive. 

This infecting and being infected, without so much as 
its being known to either person, is evident from two sorts 
of cases, which frequently happened at that time ; and 
there is hardly anybody living, who was in London during 
the infection, but must have known several of the cases of 
both sorts. 

1. Fathers and mothers have gone about as if they had 
been well, and have believed themselves to be so, till they 
have insensibly infected and been the destruction of their 
whole families ; which they would have been far from do- 
ing, if they had had the least apprehensions of their being 
unsound and dangerous themselves. A family, Avhose 



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203 



story I have heard, was thus infected by the father, and 
the distemper began to appear upon some of them even be- 
fore he found it upon himself ; but searching more nar- 
rowly, it appeared he had been infected some time, and as 
soon as he found that his family had been poisoned by him- 
self, he went distracted, and would have laid violent hands 
upon himself, but was kept from that by those who looked 
to him, and in a few days he died. 

2. The other particular is, that many people having been 
well to the best of their own judgment, or by the best ob- 
servation which they could make of themselves for several 
days, and only finding a decay of appetite, or a light sick- 
ness upon their stomachs ; nay, some whose appetite has 
been strong, and even craving, and only a light pain in their 
heads, have sent for physicians to know what ailed them, 
and have been found, to their great surprise, at the brink 
of death, the tokens upon them, or the plague grown up 
to an incurable height. 

It was very sad to reflect, how such a person as this last 
mentioned above, had been a walking destroyer, perhaps 
for a week or fortnight before that ; how he had ruined 
those that he would have hazarded his life to save ; and had 
been breathing death upon them, even perhaps in his ten- 
der kissing and embracings of his own children. Yet thus 
certainly it was, and often has been, and I could give many 
particular cases where it has been so. If, then, the blow 
is thus insensibly striking ; if the arrow flies thus unseen 
and cannot be discovered ; to what purpose are all the 
schemes for shutting up or removing the sick people ? 
Those schemes cannot take place but upon those that appear 
to be sick, or to be infected ; whereas there are among them, 
at the same time, thousands of people who seem to be well, 
but are all that while carrying death with them into all 
companies which they come into. 

This frequently puzzled our physicians, and especially 
the apothecaries and surgeons, who knew not how to dis- 
cover the sick from the sound. They all allowed that it was 



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really so ; that many j^eople had the plague in their very 
blood, and preying upon their spirits, and were in them- 
selves but walking putrified carcasses, whose breath was in- 
fectious, and their sweat poison, and yet were as well to 
look on as other people, and even knew it not themselves ; 
I say, they all allowed that it was really true in fact, but 
they knew not how to propose a discovery.^ 

My friend Dr. Heath was of opinion, that it might be 
known by the smell of their breath ; but then, as he said, 
who durst smell to that breath for his information, since, 
to know it, he must draw the stench of the plague up into 
his own brain, in order to distinguish the smell ? I have 
heard, it was the opinion of others, that it might be dis- 
tinguished by the party's breathing upon a piece of glass, 
where, the breath condensing, there might living creatures 
be seen by a microscope, of strange, monstrous, and fright- 
ful shapes, such as dragons, snakes, serpents, and devils, 
horrible to behold. But this I very much question the 
truth of ; and we had no microscopes at that time, as I re- 
member, to make the experiment with. 

It was the opinion also of another learned man, that the 
breath of such a person would poison and instantly kill a 
bird ; not only a small bird, but even a cock or hen ; and 
that if it did not immediately kill the latter, it would 
cause them to be roupy,^ as they call it ; particularly that 
if they had laid any eggs at that time, they would be all 
rotten. But those are opinions which I never found sup- 
ported by any experiments, or heard of others that had 
seen it, so I leave them as I find them, only with this re- 
mark, namely, that I think the probabilities are very strong 
for them. 

Some have proposed that such persons should breathe 
hard upon warm water, and that they would leave an un- 
usual scum upon it, or upon several other things ; especially 
such as are of a glutinous substance, and are apt to receive 
a scum and support it. 

' A test. 2 C\itarrlial. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAQUE 



205 



But^ from the whole/ I found that the nature of this 
contagion was such that it was impossible to discover it at 
all, or to prevent it spreading from one to another by any 
human skill. 

Here was, indeed, one difficulty, which I could never 
thoroughly get over to this time, and which there is but 
one way of answering that I know of, and it is this, viz. : 
the first person that died of the plague was on December 
20th, or thereabouts, 1664, and in or about Longacre ; 
whence the first person had ^ the infection was generally 
said to be ^ from a parcel of silks imported from Holland, 
and first opened in that house. 

But after this we heard no more of any person dying of 
the plague, or of the distemper being in that place, till the 
9th of February, which was about seven weeks after, and 
then one more was buried out of the same house : then it 
was hushed, and we were perfectly easy as to the public 
for a great while ; for there were no more entered in the 
weekly bill to be dead of the plague till the 22nd of April, 
when there were two more buried, not out of the same 
house, but out of the same street ; and, as near as I can 
remember, it was out of the next house to the first : this 
was nine weeks asunder, and after this we had no more till 
a fortnight, and then it broke out in several streets, and 
spread every way. Now the question seems to lie thus : — 
Where lay the seeds of the infection all this while ? how 
came it to stop so long, and not stop any longer ? Either 
the distemper did not come immediately by contagion from 
body to body, or if it did, then a body may be capable to 
continue infected, without the disease discovering itself, 
many days, nay, weeks together, even not a quarantine of 
days only, but a soixantine, not only forty days, but sixty 
days, or longer. 

It is true, there was, as I observed at first, and is well 
known to many yet living, a very cold winter, and a long 

I From all the facts. Wlio had. ^ To have taken it. 



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frost, which continued three months, and this, the doctors 
say, might check the infection ; but then the learned must 
allow me to say, that if, according to their notion, the 
disease was, as I may say, only frozen up, it would, like a 
frozen river, have returned to its usual force and current 
when it thawed, whereas the principal recess ^ of this in- 
fection, which was from February to April, was after the 
frost was broken, and the weather mild and warm. 

But there is another way of solving all this difficulty, 
which I think my own remembrance of the thing will 
supply ; and that is, the fact is not granted, namely, that 
there died none in those long intervals, viz., from the 
20th of December to the 9th of February, and from thence 
to the 22nd of April. The weekly bills are the only evi- 
dence on the other side, and those bills were not of credit 
enough, at least with me, to support an hypothesis, or 
determine a question of such importance as this : for it 
was our received opinion at that time, and I believe upon 
very good grounds, that the fraud lay in the parish officers, 
searchers, and persons appointed to give account of the 
dead, and what diseases they died of ; and as people were 
very loath at first to have the neighbours believe their 
houses were infected, so they gave money to procure, or 
otherwise procured, the dead persons to be returned as dy- 
ing of other distempers ; and this I know was practised 
afterwards in many places, I believe I might say in all 
places Avhere the distemper came, as will be seen by the 
vast increase of the numbers placed in the weekly bills 
under other articles of diseases during the time of the in- 
fection ; for example, in the months of July and August, 
when the plague was coming on to its highest pitch, it was 
very ordinary to have from a thousand to twelve hundred, 
nay, to almost fifteen hundred a week, of other distempers ; 
not that the numbers of those distempers were really in- 
creased to such a degree ; but the great number of families 
and houses wliero i-eally the infection Avas, obtained the 
1 Tlie period when it receded. 



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207 



favour to have tlieir dead be returned of other distempers, 
to prevent the shutting up their houses. For example : — 

Dead of other diseases besides the Plague. 



From the 18th to the 25th July . . 942 

To the 1st of August .... 1004 

To the 8th 1213 

To the 15th 1439 

To the 22nd 1331 

To the 29th 1394 

To the 5th of September .... 1264 

To the 12th 1056 

To the 19th 1132 

To the 26th 927 



Now it was not doubted but the greatest part of these, 
or a great part of them, were dead of the plague, but the 
officers were prevailed with to return them as above, and 
the numbers of some particular articles of distempers dis- 
covered is as follows : — 



From the 1st to 8th Aug., to 15th, to 22nd, to 29th. 



Fever . 


314 


353 


348 


383 


Spotted Fever 


174 


190 


166 


165 


Surfeit 


85 


87 


74 


99 


Teeth . 


90 


113 


111 


133 




663 


743 


699 


780 


From Aug. 29 to Sept. 5th, 


to 12th, 


to 19th, 


to 26th. 


Fever . 


364 


332 


309 


268 


Spotted Fever 


157 


97 


101 


65 


Surfeit 


68 


45 


49 


36 


Teeth . 


138 


128 


121 


112 




727 


002 


580 


481 



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There were several others articles which bore a proportion 
to these^ and which it is easy to perceive were increased on 
the same account^ as aged/ consumptions^ vomitings, im- 
posthumes/ gripes, and the like, many of which were not 
doubted to be infected people ; but as it was of the utmost 
consequence to families not to be known to be infected, if 
it was possible to avoid it, so they took all the measures 
they could to have it not believed ; and if any died in their 
houses to get them returned to the examiners, and by the 
searchers, as having died of other distempers. 

This, I say, will account for the long interval which, as 
I have said, was between the dying of the first persons that 
were returned in the bills to be dead of the plague, and the 
time when the distemper spread openly, and could not be 
concealed. 

Besides, the weekly bills themselves, at that time, evi- 
dently discovers this truth ; for, while there was no men- 
tion of the plague, and no increase after it had been men- 
tioned, yet it was apparent that there was an increase of 
those distempers which bordered nearest upon it ; for exam- 
ple, there were eight, twelve, seventeen of the spotted fever 
in a week when there were none or but very few of the 
plague; whereas,before, one, three, or four, were the ordinary 
weekly numbers of that distemper. Likewise, as I observed 
before, the burials increased weekly in that particular par- 
ish, and the parishes adjacent, more than in any other 
parish, although there were none set down of the plague ; 
all which tell us that the infection was handed on, and the 
succession of the distemper really preserved, though it 
seemed to us at that time to be ceased, and to come again 
in a manner surprising. 

It might be also that the infection might remain in other 
parts of the same parcel of goods which at first it came in, 
and which might not be perhaps opened, or at least not 
fully, or in the clothes of the first infected person ; for I 
cannot think that anybody could be seized with the conta- 
^ Persons dying of old age. Abscesses. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



209 



gion in a fatal and mortal degree for nine weeks together, 
and support liis state of health so well, as even not to dis- 
cover it to themselves ; ^ yet, if it were so, the argument is 
the stronger in favour of what I am saying, namely, that 
the infection is retained in bodies apparently well, and con- 
veyed from them to those they converse with, while it is 
known to neither the one nor the other. 

Great were the confusions at that time upon this very 
account ; and when people began to be convinced that the 
infection was received in this surprising manner from per- 
sons apparently well, they began to be exceeding shy and 
jealous of every one that came near them. Once, on a 
public day, whether a Sabbath-day or not, I do not remem- 
ber, in Aldgate church, in a pew full of peoj)le, on a sud- 
den one fancied she smelt an ill smell ; immediately she 
fancies the plague was in the pew, whispers her notion or 
suspicion to the next, then rises and goes out of the pew ; 
it immediately took with the next, and so with them all, 
and every one of them and of the two or three adjoining 
pews, got up and went out of the church, nobody knowing 
what it was offended them, or from whom. 

This immediately filled everybody's mouths with one 
preparation or other, such as the old women directed, and 
some perhaps as physicians directed, in order to prevent 
infection by the breath of others ; insomuch, that if we 
came to go into a church, when it was anything full of 
people, there would be such a mixture of smells at the en- 
trance, that it was much more strong, though perhaps not 
so wholesome, than if you were going into an apothecary's 
or druggist's shop. In a word, the whole church was like 
a smelling bottle ; in one corner it was all perfumes, in an- 
other aromatics, balsamics, and a variety of drugs and 
herbs ; in another, salts and spirits, as every one was fur- 
nished for their own preservation : yet I observed, that, 
after people were possessed, as I have said, witli the belief, 
or rather assurance, of the infection being thus carried on 
1 Himself. 

14 



210 



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by persons apparently in healthy the clinrclies and meeting- 
houses were much thinner of people than at other times^ 
before that they used to be ; for this is to be said of the 
people of London, that, during the whole time of the pes- 
tilence, the churches or meetings were never wholly shut 
up, nor did the people decline coming out to the public 
worship of God, except only in some parishes, when the 
violence of the distemper was more particularly in that 
parish at that time ; and even then no longer than it con- 
tinued to be so. 

Indeed, nothing was more strange than to see with what 
courage the* people went to the public service of God, 
even at that time when they were afraid to stir out of their 
own houses upon any other occasion : this I mean before 
the time of desperation which I have mentioned already. 
This was a proof of the exceeding populousness of the city 
at the time of the infection, notwithstanding the great 
numbers that were gone into the country at the first alarm, 
and that fled out into the forests and woods when they 
were further terrified with the extraordinary increase of it. 
For when we came to see the crowds and throngs of people 
which appeared on the Sabbath-days at the churches, and 
especially in those parts of the town where the plague was 
abated, or where it was not yet come to its height, it was 
amazing. But of this I shall speak again presently. I re- 
turn, in the meantime, to the article of infecting one an- 
other at first. Before people came to right notions of the 
infection, and of infecting one another, people were only 
shy of those that were really sick ; a man with a cap upon 
his head, or with clothes round his neck, which was the 
case of those that had swellings there, such was indeed 
frightful ; but when we saw a gentleman dressed, with his 
band ^ on, and his gloves in his hand, his hat upon his 
head, and his hair combed, of such we had not the least 
apprehensions, and people conversed a great while freely^, 
especially with their neighbours and such as they knew. 
' A form of collar. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



211 



But when the physicians assured us that the danger was as 
well from the sound, that is, the seemingly sound, as the 
sick, and that those people that thought themselves entirely 
free were oftentimes the most fatal ; and that it came to 
be generally understood that people were sensible of it, and 
of the reason of it ; then, I say, they began to be jealous of 
everybody, and a vast number of people locked themselves 
up, so as not to come abroad into any company at all, nor 
suffer any that had been abroad in promiscuous company 
to come into their houses or near them ; at least not so 
near them as to be within the reach of their breath, or of 
any smell from them ; and when they were obliged to con- 
verse at a distance with strangers, they would always have 
preservatives in their mouths, and about their clothes, to 
repel and keep off the infection. 

It must be acknowledged, that when people began to 
use these cautions, they were less exposed to danger, and 
the infection did not break into such houses so fu- 
riously as it did into others before, and thousands of fam- 
ilies were preserved, speaking with due reserve to the 
direction of divine Providence, by that means. 

But it was impossible to beat anything into the heads of 
the poor. They went on with the usual impetuosity of 
their tempers, full of outcries, and lamentations when 
taken, but madly careless of themselves, foolhardy and 
obstinate, while they were well. Where they could get 
employment they pushed into any kind of business, the 
most dangerous and the most liable to infection ; and, if 
they were spoken to, their answer would be, I must trust 
to God for that ; if I am taken, then I am provided for, 
and there is an end of me ; and the like. Or thus, 
" Why, what must I do ? I cannot starve, I had as good 
have the plague as perish for want ; I have no work ; what 
could I do ? I must do this or bog." Suppose it was 
burying the dead, or attending the sick, or watching in- 
fected houses, which were all terrible hazards ; but their 



212 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



tale was generally the same. It is true, necessity was a 
justifiable, warrantable plea, and nothing could be better ; 
but their way of talk was much the same where the neces- 
sities were not the same. This adventurous conduct of 
the poor was that which brought the plague among them in 
a most furious manner ; and this, joined to the distress of 
their circumstances, when taken, was the reason why they 
died so by heaps ; for I cannot say I could observe one jot 
of better husbandry among them, I mean the labouring 
poor, while they were all well and getting money, than 
there was before, but as lavish, as extravagant, and as 
thoughtless for to-morrow as ever ; so that when they 
came to be taken sick, they were immediately in the ut- 
most distress, as well for want as for sickness, as well for 
lack of food as lack of health. 

The misery of the poor I had many occasions to be an 
eye-witness of, and sometimes also of the charitable assist- 
ance that some pious people daily gave to such, sending 
them relief and supplies both of food, physic, and other 
help, as they found they wanted ; and, indeed, it is a debt 
of justice due to the temper of the people of that day, to 
take notice here, that not only great sums, very great 
sums of money, were charitably sent to the lord mayor and 
aldermen for the assistance and support of the poor dis- 
tempered people, but abundance of private people daily 
distributed large sums of money for their relief, and sent 
people about to inquire into the condition of particular 
distressed and visited families, and relieved them ; nay, 
some pious ladies were transported with zeal in so good a 
work, and so confident in the protection of Providence in 
discharge of the great duty of charity, that they went 
about in person distributing alms to the poor, and even 
visiting poor families, though sick and infected, in their 
very houses, appointing nurses to attend those that wanted 
attending, and ordering apothecaries and surgeons, the 
first to supply them with drugs or plasters, and such 
things as they wanted, and the last to lance and dress the 



APRIL2Q1 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 213 

swellings and tumours^ where such were wanting ; giving 
their blessing to the poor in substantial relief to them, as 
well as hearty prayers for them. 

I will not undertake to say, as some do, that none of 
those charitable people were suffered to fall under the ca- 
lamity itself ; but this I may say, that I never knew any 
one of them that miscarried,^ which I mention for the en- 
couragement of others in case of the like distress ; and 
doubtless, if they that give to the poor, lend to the Lord, 
and he will repay them,^ those that hazard their lives to 
give to the poor, and to comfort and assist the poor in 
such misery as this, may hope to be protected in the work. 

Nor was this charity so extraordinary eminent only in a 
few ; but (for I cannot lightly quit this point) the charity 
of the rich, as well in the city and suburbs as from the 
country, was so great, that, in a word, a prodigious num- 
ber of people, who must otherwise have perished for want 
as well as sickness, were supported and subsisted by it ; 
and though I could never, nor I believe any one else, come 
to a full knowledge of what was so contributed, yet I do 
believe that, as I heard one say that was a critical observer 
of that part,^ there was not only many thousand pounds 
contributed, but many hundred thousand pounds, to the 
relief of the poor of this distressed, afflicted city ; nay, 
one man affirmed to me that he could reckon up above 
one hundred thousand pounds a week, which was distrib- 
uted by the churchwardens at the several parish vestries, 
by the lord mayor and the aldermen in the several wards 
and precincts, and by the particular direction of the court 
and of the justices respectively in the parts where they 
resided ; over and above the private charity distributed by 
pious hands in the manner I speak of ; and this continued 
for many weeks together. 

I confess this is a very great sum ; but if it be true that 

' Came to grief. 2 Proverbs xix. 17. 

L.e., of tlie circumstances, unless " part" be here used iu tlie rare 
sense of " conduct," 



214 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



there was distributed in the j^arish of Cripplegate only, 
seventeen thousand eight hundred pounds in one week to 
the relief of the poor, as I heard reported, and which I 
really believe was true, the other may not be improbable. 

It was doubtless to be reckoned among the many signal 
good providences which attended this great city, and of 
which there were many other worth recording ; I say this 
was a very remarkable one, that it pleased God thus to 
move the hearts of the people in all parts of the kingdom 
so cheerfully to contribute to the relief and suj)port of the 
poor at London ; the good consequences of which were felt 
many ways, and particularly in preserving the lives and 
recovering the health of so many thousands, and keeping 
so many thousands of families from perishing and starving. 

And now I am talking of the merciful disj^osition of 
Providence in this time of calamity, I cannot but mention 
again, though I have spoken several times of it already on 
other accounts, I mean that of the progression of the dis- 
temper ; how it began at one end of the town, and pro- 
ceeded gradually and slowly from one 23art to another, and 
like a dark cloud that passes over our heads, which, as it 
thickens and overcasts the air at one end, clears up at the 
other end ; so, while the plague went on raging from west 
to east, as it went forwards east it abated in the west, by 
which means those parts of the town which were not seized, 
or who were left, and where it had spent its fury, were (as 
it were) spared to help and assist the other ; whereas, had 
the distem]3er spread itself over the whole city and suburbs 
at once, raging in all places alike, as it has done since in 
some places abroad, the whole body of the people must 
have been overwhelmed, and there would have died twenty 
thousand a day, as they say there did at Xaples, nor would 
the people have been able to have helped or assisted one 
another. 

For it must be observed, that where the plague was in 
its full force, there, indeed, the people were xevj miser- 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



215 



able, and the consternation was inexj^ressible. But a little 
before it reached even to that place, or presently after it 
was gone, they were quite another sort of people, and I 
cannot but acknowledge that there was too much of that 
common temper of mankind to be found among us all at that 
time, namely, to forget the deliverance when the danger is 
past ; but I shall come to speak of that part again. 

It must not be forgot here to take some notice of the 
state of trade during the time of this common calamity ; 
and this with respect to foreign trade, as also to our home 
trade. 

As to foreign trade, there needs little to be said. The 
trading nations of Europe were all afraid of us ; no port of 
France, or Holland, or Spain, or Italy, would admit our 
ships or correspond with us ; indeed, we stood on ill terms 
with the Dutch, and were in a furious war with them, 
though in a bad condition to fight abroad, who had such 
dreadful enemies to struggle with at home. 

Our merchants were accordingly at a full stop ; their 
ships could go nowhere, that is to say, to no place abroad ; 
their manufactures and merchandise, that is to say, of our 
growth, would not be touched abroad ; they were as much 
afraid of our goods as they were of our people ; and, in- 
deed, they had reason, for our woollen manufactures are as 
retentive of infection as human bodies, and, if packed up 
by persons infected, would receive the infection and be as 
dangerous to the touch as a man would be that was in- 
fected ; and, therefore, when any English vessel arrived in 
foreign countries, if they did take the goods on shore, 
they always caused the bales to be opened and aired in 
places appointed for that purpose. But from London 
they would not suffer them to come into port, much less 
to unload their goods upon any terms Avhatever ; and this 
strictness was especially used with them in Spain and 
Italy : in Turkey, and the islands of the Arches,^ indeed, 
' The Grecian Archipelago. 



216 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



as they are called^ as well those belonging to the Turks as 
to the Venetians, they were not so very rigid ; in the first 
there was no obstruction at all, and for ^ ships which were 
then in the river loading for Italy, that is, for Leghorn 
and Naples, being denied^ product,^ as they call it, went 
on to Turkey, and were freely admitted to unlade their 
cargo without any difficulty, only that when they arrived 
there some of their cargo was not fit for sale in that coun- 
try, and other parts of it being consigned to merchants at 
Leghorn, the captains of the ships had no right nor any 
orders to dispose of the goods, so that great inconveniences 
followed to the merchants. But this was nothing but 
what the necessity of affairs required, and the merchants 
at Leghorn and Naples having notice given them, sent 
again from thence to take care of the effects, which were 
particularly consigned to those ports, and to bring back in 
other ships such as were improper for the markets at 
Smyrna and Scanderoon.^ 

The inconveniences in Spain and Portugal were still 
greater ; for they would by no means suffer our ships, es- 
pecially those from London, to come into any of their ports, 
much less to unlade. There was a report, that one of our 
ships, having by stealth delivered her cargo, among which 
were some bales of English cloth, cotton, kerseys, ^ and such 
like goods, the Spaniards caused all the goods to be burnt, 
and punished the men with death who Avere concerned in 
carrying them on shore. This I believe was in part true, 
though I do not affirm it ; but it is not at all unlikely, see- 
ing the danger was really very great, the infection being so 
violent in London. 

I heard likewise that the plague was carried into those 
countries by some of our ships, and particularly to the port 
of Faro, in the kingdom of Algarve,^ belonging to the King 

^ Omit " for." a At Leghorn and Naples. 

^ Permission to unload their cargoes. 

Iskanderun or Alexandretta, a seaport of Asiatic Turkey. 
^ Coarse woollen clothes. * The most southern province of Portugal, 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAQUE 



217 



of Portugal ; and that several persons died of it there^ but 
it was not confirmed. 

On the other hand, though the Spaniards and Portuguese 
were so shy of us, it is most certain that the plague, as has 
been said, keeping at first much at that end of the town next 
Westminster, the merchandising part of the town, such as 
the city, and the waterside, was perfectly sound, till at least 
the beginning of July ; and the ships in the river till the 
beginning of August ; for, to the 1st of July, there had 
died but seven within the whole city, and but 60 within the 
liberties ; but one in all the parishes of Stepney, Aldgate, 
and Whitechapel, and but two in all the eight parishes of 
Southwark ; but it was the same thing abroad, for the bad 
news was gone over the whole world that the city of Lon- 
don was infected with the plague ; and there was no in- 
quiring there how the infection proceeded, or at which part 
of the town it was begun or was reached to. 

Besides, after it began to spread, it increased so fast, and 
the bills grew so high all on a sudden, that it was to no pur- 
pose to lessen the report of it, or endeavour to make the 
people abroad think it better than it was ; the account 
which the weekly bills gave in was sufficient ; and that 
there died two thousand to three or four thousand a week, 
was sufficient to alarm the whole trading part of the world, 
and the following time being so dreadful also in the very 
city itself, put the whole world, I say, upon their guard 
against it. 

You may be sure also that the report of these things lost 
nothing in the carriage ; the plague was itself very terrible, 
and the distress of the people very great, as you may observe 
of ^ what I have said ; but the rumour was infinitely greater, 
and it must not be wondered that our friends abroad, as 
my brother's correspondents in particular were told there, 
namely, in Portugal and Italy, where he chiefly traded, 
that in London there died twenty thousand in a week ; 
that the dead bodies lay unburied by heaps ; that the living 

■By. 



218 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



were not sufficient to bury the dead^ or tlie sound to look 
after the sick ; that all the kingdom was infected likewise^ so 
that it was an universal malady^ such as was never heard 
of in those parts of the world ; and they could hardly be- 
lieve us when we gave them an account how things really 
were^ and how there was not above one- tenth part of the 
people dead ; that there were five hundred thousand left 
that lived all the time in the town ; that now the people 
began to walk the streets again, and those who were fled to 
return ; there was no miss of the usual throng of people in 
the streets, except as every family might miss their relations 
and neighbours, and the like ; I say, they could not believe 
these things ; and if inquiry were now to be made in Naples, 
or in other cities on the coast of Italy, they would tell 
you there was a dreadful infection in London so many 
years ago, in which, as above, there died twenty thousand 
in a week, etc., just as we have had it reported in London 
that there was a plague in the city of N'aples in the year 
1656, in which there died twenty thousand people in a 
day, of which I have had very good satisfaction that it was 
utterly false. 

But these extravagant reports were very prejudicial to 
our trade, as well as unjust and injurious in themselves, 
for it was a long time after the plague was quite over before 
our trade could recover itself in those parts of the world ; 
and the Flemings and Dutch, but especially the last, made 
very great advantages of it, having all the market to them- 
selves, and even buying our manufactures in the several 
parts of England where the plague was not, and carrying 
them to Holland and Flanders, and from thence transport- 
ing them to Spain and to Italy, as if they had been of their 
own making. 

But they were detected sometimes and punished, that is 
to say, their goods confiscated and ships also : for if it was 
true that our manufactures, as well as our people, were in- 
fected, and that it was dangerous to touch, or to open and 
receive the smell of them, then those people ran the haz- 



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ard^ by that clandestine trade, not only of carrying the con- 
tagion into their own country, but also of infecting the 
nations to whom they traded with those goods ; which, con- 
sidering how many lives might be lost in consequence of 
such an action, must be a trade that no men of conscience 
could suffer themselves to be concerned in. 

I do not take upon me to say that any harm was done, I 
mean of that kind, by those people ; but I doubt ^ I need 
not make any such proviso in the case of our own country ; 
for either by our people of London, or by the commerce, 
which made their conversing with all sorts of people in every 
county, and of every considerable town, necessary ; I say, by 
this means the plague was first or last spread all over the king- 
dom, as Avell in London as in all the cities and great towns, 
especially in the trading manufacturing towns and seaports ; 
so that, first or last, all the considerable places in Eng- 
land were visited more or less, and the kingdom of Ireland 
in some places, but not so universally. How it fared with 
the people in Scotland I had no opportunity to inquire. 

It is to be observed, that while the plague continued so 
violent in London, the outports, as they are called, enjoyed 
a very great trade, especially to the adjacent countries, and 
to onr own plantations ; ^ for example, the towns of Col- 
chester, Yarmouth, and Hull, on that side of England, ex- 
ported to Holland and Hamburg the manufactures of the 
adjacent counties for several months after the trade with 
London was, as it were, entirely shut up ; likewise the 
cities of Bristol, and Exeter, with'the port of Plymouth, 
had the like advantage to Spain, to the Canaries, to Guinea, 
and to the West Indies, and particularly to Ireland ; but as 
the plague spread itself every way after it had been in 
London to such a degree as it was in August and Septem- 
ber, so all or most of those cities and towns were infected 
first or last, and then trade was, as it were, under a general 
embargo, or at a full stop, as I shall observe farther when 
I speak of our home trade. 

' Suppose. 2 Colonies. 



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One thing, however, must be observecl, that as to ships 
coming in from abroad, as many you may be sure did, some 
who were out in all parts of the world a considerable while 
before, and some who, when they went out, knew nothing 
of an infection, or, at least, of one so terrible ; these came 
up the river boldly, and delivered their cargoes as they were 
obliged to do, except just in the two months of August 
and September, when the weight of the infection lying, as 
I may say, all below bridge,^ nobody durst appear in busi- 
ness for a while ; but, as this continued but for a few weeks, 
the homeward bound ships, especially such whose cargoes 
were not liable to spoil, came to an anchor for a time short 
of the Pool, or fresh water part of the river, even as low as 
the river Medway, where several of them ran in, and 
others lay at the Nore, and in the Hope below G-ravesend ; 
so that by the latter end of October there was a very great 
fleet of homeward bound ships to come up, such as the likei 
had not been known for many years. 

Two particular trades were carried on by water-carriage 
all the while of the infection, and that with little or no in- 
terruption, very much to the advantage and comfort of the 
poor distressed people of the city, and those were the coast- 
ing trade for corn, and the Newcastle trade for coals. 

The first of these was particularly carried on by small 
vessels from the port of Hull, and other places in the 
Humber, by which great quantities of corn were brought 
in from Yorkshire and Lincolnshire ; the other part of this 
corn trade was from Lynn in Norfolk, from Wells, and 
Burnham, and from Yarmouth all in the same county ; 
and the third branch was from the river Medway, and 
from Milton, Feversham, Margate, and Sandwich, and all 
the other little places and ports round the coast of Kent 
and Essex. 

There was also a very good trade from the coast of Suf- 
folk, with corn, butter, and cheese. These vessels kept a 
constant course of trade, and without interruption came 
' London Bridge. 



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np to that market known still by the name of Bear Key, 
where they supplied the city plentifully with corn, when 
land-carriage began to fail, and when the people began to 
be sick of coming from many places in the country. 

This also was much of it owing to the prudence and con- 
duct of the lord mayor, who took such care to keep the 
masters and seamen from danger when they came up, caus- 
ing their corn to be bought off at any time they wanted a 
market (which, however, was very seldom), and causing 
the corn-factors^ immediately to unlade and deliver the 
vessels laden with corn, that ^ they had very little occasion 
to come out of their ships or vessels, the money being al- 
ways carried on board to them, and put it into a pail of vin- 
egar before it was carried. 

The second trade was that of coals from Newcastle-upon- 
Tyne, without which the city would have been greatly dis- 
tressed ; for, not in the streets only, but in private houses 
and families, great quantities of coal were then burnt, even 
all the summer long, and when the weather was hottest, 
which was done by the advice of the physicians. Some, 
indeed, opposed it, and insisted that to keep the houses 
and rooms hot was a means to propagate the distemper, 
which was a fermentation and heat already in the blood ; 
that it was known to spread and increase in hot weather, 
and abate in cold, and therefore they alleged that all con- 
tagious distempers are the worst for heat, because the con- 
tagion was nourished and gained strength in hot weather, 
and was, as it were, propagated in heat. 

Others said, they granted that heat in the climate might 
propagate infection, as sultry hot weather fills the air with 
vermin, and nourishes innumerable numbers and kinds of 
venomous creatures, which breed in our food, in the plants, 
and even in our bodies, by the very stench of which infec- 
tion may be propagated ; also, that heat in the air, or heat 
of weather, as we ordinarily call it, makes bodies relax and 
faint, exhausts the spirits, opens the pores, and makes us 
' Wholesale merchants. ^ So that. 



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more apt to receive infection or any evil influence^ be it 
from noxious, pestilential vapours, or any other thing in 
the air; but that the heat of fire, and especially of coal 
fires, kept in our houses or near us, had quite a different 
operation, the heat being not of the same kind, but quick 
and fierce, tending not to nourish but to consume and dis- 
sipate all those noxious fumes which the other kind of heat 
rather exhaled and stagnated than separated and burnt 
up ; besides, it was alleged that the sulphurous and nitrous 
particles that are often found to be in the coal, with that 
bituminous substance which burns, are all assisting to clear 
and purge the air, and render it wholesome and safe to 
breathe in, after the noxious particles (as above) are dis- 
persed and burnt up. 

The latter opinion prevailed at that time, and, as I must 
confess, I think, with good reason, and the experience of 
the citizens confirmed it, many houses which had constant 
fires kept in the rooms having never been infected at all ; 
and I must join my experience to it, for I found the keep- 
ing of good fires kept our rooms sweet and wholesome, and 
I do verily believe made our whole family so, more than 
would otherwise have been. 

But I return to the coals as a trade. It was with no little 
difficulty that this trade was kept open, and particularly be- 
_ cause as we were in an open war with the Dutch at that 
time, the Dutch capers^ at first took a great many of our 
collier ships, which made the rest cautious, and made them 
to stay to^ come in fieets together ; but after some time the 
capers were either afraid to take them, or their masters, 
the States,^ were afraid they should, and forbade them, lest 
the plague should be among them, which made them fare 
the better. 

For the security of those northern traders, the coal ships 
were ordered by my lord mayor not to come up into the 
Pool above a certain number at a time, and ordered lighters 

' Light Dutch privateers. ^ Wait in order to. 

^ The States-General, the Dutch legisLative assembly. 



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and other vessels, such as the woodmongers/ that is, the 
wharf-keepers, or coal-sellers furnished, to go down and 
take out the coals as low as Deptford and Greenwich, and 
some farther down. 

Others delivered great quantities of coals in particular 
places, where the ships could come to the shore, as at Green- 
wich, Blackwall, and other places, in vast heaps, as if to be 
kept for sale, but were then fetched away after the ships 
which brought them were gone ; so that the seamen had no 
communication with the river men, nor so much as came 
near one another. 

Yet all this caution could not effectually prevent the dis- 
temper getting among the colliery, that is to say, among 
the ships, by which a great many seamen died of it ; and 
that which was still worse was, that they carried it down 
to Ipswich and Yarmouth, to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and 
other places on the coast ; where, especially at Newcastle 
and at Sunderland, it carried off a great number of people. 

The making so many fires, as above, did, indeed, consume 
an unusual quantity of coals ; ^ and that ^ upon one or two 
stops of the ships coming up, whether by contrary weather 
or by the interruption of enemies, I do not remember, but 
the price of coals was exceedingly dear, even as high as 4?. a 
chaldron,^ but it soon abated when the ships came in, and 
as afterwards they had a freer passage, the price was very 
reasonable all the rest of that year. 

The public fires which were made on these occasions, as 
I have calculated it, must necessarily have cost the city 
about 200 chaldron of coals a week, if they had continued, 
which was indeed a very great quantity, but as it was 
thought necessary, nothing was spared ; however, as some 
of the physicians cried them down, they were not kept a- 
light above four or five days. The fires were ordered thus : 

' Wood merchants. 

2 In England the word "coal" is freciuently used in the plural. 

And brought it about that. 
^Then twenty-five and a half hundredweight. 



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One at the Custom House ; one at Billingsgate ; one at 
Queenhithe ; and one at the Three Cranes ; one in Black- 
friars ; and one at the gate of Bridewell ; one at the cor- 
ner of Leadenhall Street and Gracechurch ; one at the 
norths and one at the south gate of the Eoyal Exchange ; 
one at Guildhall, and one at Blackwell Hall gate ; one at 
the lord mayor^s door in St. Helenas ; one at the west en- 
trance into St. PauFs ; and one at the entrance into Bow 
church. I do not remember whether there was any at the 
city gates, but one at the bridge foot there was, just by 
St. Magnus Church. 

I know some have quarrelled since that at the experi- 
ment, and said that there died the more people because of 
those fires ; but I am persuaded those that say so offer no 
evidence to prove it, neither can I believe it on any ac- 
count whatever. 

It remains to give some account of the state of trade at 
home in England, during this dreadful time ; and partic- 
ularly as it relates to the manufactures and the trade in 
the city. At the first breaking out of the infection, there 
was, as it is easy to suppose, a very great fright among the 
people, and consequently a general stop of trade, except in 
provisions and necessaries of life ; and even in those things, 
as there was a vast number of people fled, and a very great 
number always sick, besides the number Avhich died, so 
there could not be above two-thirds, if above one-half, of 
the consumption of provisions in the city as used to be. 

It pleased God to send a very plentiful year of corn and 
fruit, and not of hay or grass ; by which means bread was 
cheap, by reason of the plenty of corn ; flesh was cheap, by 
reason of the scarcity of grass,^ but butter and cheese were 
dear for the same reason ; and hay in the market, just be- 
yond Whitechapel bars, was sold at 4/. per load ; but that 
affected not the poor. There was a most excessive plenty 
of all sorts of fruit, such as apples, pears, plumbs, cherries, 
' Because it was cheaper to kill cattle than to pasture them. 



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225 



grapes, and they were the cheaper because of the wants of 
the people, but this made the poor eat them to excess, and 
this brought them into fluxes, griping of the guts, surfeits, 
and the like, which often precipitated them into the 
plague. 

But to come to matters of trade. First, foreign expor- 
tation being stopped, or at least very much interrupted 
and rendered difficult, a general stop of all those manu- 
factures followed of course, which were usually brought 
for exportation ; and, though sometimes merchants abroad 
were importunate for goods, yet little was sent, the pas- 
sages being so generally stopped that the English ships 
would not be admitted, as is said already, into their port. 

This put a stop to the manufactures that were for ex- 
portation in most parts of England, except in some out- 
ports, and even that was soon stopped ; for they all had 
the plague, in their turn. But, though this was felt all 
over England, yet, what was still worse, all intercourse of 
trade for home consumption of manufactures, especially 
those which usually circulated through the Londoners^ 
hands, was stopped at once, the trade of the city being 
stopped. 

All kinds of handicrafts in the city, etc., tradesmen and 
mechanics, were, as I have said before, out of employ, and 
this occasioned the putting otf and dismissing an innumer- 
able number of journeymen and workmen of all sorts, see- 
ing nothing was done relating to such trades, but what 
might be said to be absolutely necessary. 

This caused the multitude of single people in London to 
be unprovided for ; as also of families, whose living de- 
pended upon the labour of the heads of those families ; I 
say, this reduced them to extreme misery ; and I must 
confess, it is for the honour of the city of London, and 
will be for many ages, as long as this is to be spoken of, 
that they were able to supply with charitable provision the 
wants of so many thousands of those as afterwards fell sick, 
and were distressed, so that it may be safely averred that 
15 



226 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



nobody perished for want, at least that the magistrates 
had any notice given them of. 

This stagnation of our manufacturing trade in the 
country would have put the people there to much greater 
difficulties, but that the master workmen, clothiers, and 
others, to the uttermost of their stocks and strength, kept 
on making their goods to keep the poor at work, believing 
that, as soon as the sickness should abate, they would have 
a quick demand in proportion to the decay of their trade 
at that time : but as none but those masters that were rich 
could do thus, and that ^ many were poor and not able, the 
manufacturing trade in England suffered greatly, and the 
poor were pinched all over England by the calamity of the 
city of London only. 

It is true that the next year made them full amends by 
another terrible calamity upon the city ; so that the city by 
one calamity impoverished and weakened the country, and 
by another calamity, even terrible too of its kind, enriched 
the country, and made them again amends : for an infinite 
quantity of household stuff, wearing apparel, and other 
things, besides whole warehouses filled with merchandize 
and manufactures, such as come from all parts of England, 
were consumed in the fire of London, the next year after 
this terrible visitation ; it is incredible what a trade this 
made all over the whole kingdom, to make good the want, 
and to supply that loss : so that, in short, all the manu- 
facturing hands in the nation were set on work, and were 
little enough for several years to supply the market and 
answer the demands ; all foreign markets also were empty 
of our goods, by the stop which had been occasioned by 
the plague, and before an open trade was allowed again ; 
and the prodigious demand at home falling in, joined to 
make a quick vent ^ for all sorts of goods ; so that there 
never was known such a trade all over England for the 
time, as was in the first seven years after the plague and 
after the fire of London. 

'As. 2 Sale. 



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227 



It remains, now, tliat I should say sometliing of the mer- 
ciful part of this terrible judgment. The last week in 
September, the plague being come to its crisis, its fury 
began to assuage. I remember my friend. Dr. Heath, 
coming to see me the week before, told me, he was sure 
the violence of it would assuage in a few days ; but, when 
I saw the weekly bill of that week, which was the highest 
of the whole year, being 8297 of all diseases, I upbraided 
him with it, and asked him, what he had made his judg- 
ment from. His answer, however, was not so much to 
seek 1 as I thought it would have been. " Look you,^' says 
he ; "by the number which are at this time sick and in- 
fected, there should have been twenty thousand dead the 
last week instead of eight thousand, if the inveterate mor- 
tal contagion had been as it was two weeks ago ; for then it 
ordinarily killed in two or three days, now not under eight 
or ten ; and then not above one in five recovered, whereas I 
have observed that now not above two in five miscarry; 
and observe it from me, the next bill will decrease, and you 
will see many more people recover than used to do ; for, 
though a vast multitude are now everywhere infected, and 
as many every day fall sick, yet there will not so many die 
as there did, for the malignity of the distemper is abated ; " 
adding, that he began now to hope, nay, more than hope, 
that the infection had passed its crisis, and was going off ; 
and, accordingly, so it was, for the next week being, as I 
said, the last in September, the bill decreased almost two 
thousand. 

It is true, the plague was still at a frightful height, and 
the next bill was no less than 6460, and the next to that 
5720 ; but still my friend's observation was just, and it did 
appear the people did recover faster, and more in number, 
than they used to do ; and, indeed, if it had not been so, 
what had been the condition of the city of London ? for, 
according to my friend, there were not fewer than sixty 
thousand people at that time infected, whereof, as above, 
' He was not at sucli a loss. 



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20^477 died^ and near forty thousand recovered ; whereas^ 
had it been as it was before^ fifty thousand of that number 
would very probably have died, if not more, and fifty 
thousand more would have sickened ; for, in a word, the 
whole mass of people began to sicken, and it looked as if 
none would escape. 

But this remark of my friend^s appeared more evident in 
a few weeks more ; for the decrease went on, and another 
week in October it decreased 1843, so that the number dead 
of the plague was but 2665 ; and the next week it decreased 
1413 more, and yet it was seen plainly that there was 
abundance of people sick, nay, abundance more than ordi- 
nary, and abundance fell sick every day, but, as above, the 
malignity of the disease abated. 

Such is the precipitant disposition of our people, whether 
it is so or not all over the world that is none of my par- 
ticular business to inquire, but I saw it apparently here, 
that as, upon the first sight of the infection, they shunned 
one another, and fled from one another^s houses, and from 
the city, with an unaccountable, and, as I thought, un- 
necessary fright; so now, upon this notion spreading, viz., 
that the distemper was not so catching as formerly, and 
that if it was catched, it was not so mortal ; and seeing 
abundance of people who really fell sick recover again 
daily, they took to such a precipitant courage, and grew so 
entirely regardless of themselves and of the infection, that 
they made no more of the plague than of an ordinary fever, 
nor indeed so much. They not only went boldly into com- 
pany with those who had tumours and carbuncles upon 
them, that were running, and consequently contagious, but 
eat and drank with them ; nay, into their houses to visit 
them; and even, as I was told, into their very chambers 
where they lay sick. 

This I could not see rational. My friend Dr. Heath 
allowed, and it was ^jlain to experience, that the distemper 
was as catching as ever, and as many fell sick, but only he 
alleged that so many of those that fell sick did not die : 



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but I think, that, while many did die, and that at best the 
distemper itself was very terrible, the sores and swellings 
very tormenting, and the danger of death not left out of 
the circumstance of sickness, though not so frequent as be- 
fore ; all those things, together with the exceeding tedious- 
ness of the cure, the loathsomeness of the disease, and 
many other articles, were enough to deter any man living 
from a dangerous mixture with the sick people, and make 
them as anxious almost to avoid the infection as before. 

Nay, there was another thing which made the mere 
catching of the distemper frightful, and that was the ter- 
rible burning of the caustics which the surgeons laid on 
the swellings, to bring them to break and to run, without 
which the danger of death was very great, even to the 
last ; also, the insufferable torment of the swellings, which, 
though it might not make people raving and distracted, as 
they were before, and as I have given several instances of 
already, yet they put the patient to inexpressible torment ; 
and those that fell into it, though they did escape with 
life, yet they made bitter complaints of those that had told 
them there was no danger, and sadly repented their rash- 
ness and folly in venturing to run into the reach of it. 

Nor did this unwary conduct of the people end here ; 
for a great many that thus cast off their cautions,^ suffered 
more deeply still, and though many escaped, yet many 
died; and at least, it had this public mischief attending 
it, that it made the decrease of burials slower than it 
would otherwise have been; for, as this notion ran like 
lightning through the city, and the people^s heads were 
possessed with it, even as soon as the first great decrease in 
the bills appeared, we found that the two next bills did 
not decrease in proportion ; the reason I take to be the 
people^s running so rashly into danger, giving up all their 
former cautions and care, and all shyness which they used 
to practise ; depending that ^ the sickness would not reach 
them, or that, if it did, they should not die. 

1 Cast away caution. Depending on it that. 



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The physicians opposed this thoughtless humour of the 
people with all their might, and gave out printed direc- 
tions, spreading them all over the city and suburbs, advis- 
ing the people to continue reserved and to use still the ut- 
most caution in their ordinary conduct, notwithstanding 
the decrease of the distemper ; terrifying them with the dan- 
ger of bringing a relapse upon the whole city, and telling 
them how such a relapse might be more fatal and danger- 
ous than the whole visitation that had been already ; with 
many arguments and reasons to explain and prove that 
part to them, and which are too long to repeat here. 

But it was all to no purpose ; the audacious creatures 
were so possessed with the first joy, and so surprised with 
the satisfaction of seeing a vast decrease in the weekly 
bills, that they were impenetrable by any new terrors, and 
would not be persuaded but that the bitterness of death 
was passed ; and it was to no more purpose to talk to them 
than to an east wind ; but they opened shops, went about 
streets, did business, conversed with anybody that came in 
their way to converse with, whether with business or with- 
out ; neither inquiring of their health, or so much as being 
apprehensive of any danger from them, though they knew 
them not to be sound. 

This imprudent rash conduct cost a great many their 
lives, who had with great care and caution shut them- 
selves up, and kept retired, as it were, from all mankind, 
and had by that means, under God's providence, been 
preserved through all the heat of that infection. 

This rash and foolish conduct of the people went so 
far that the ministers took notice to them ^ of it, and laid 
before them both the folly and danger of it ; and this 
checked it a little, so that they grew more cautious ; but it 
had another effect, which they could not check, for as the 
first rumour had spread, not over the city only, but into the 
country, it had the like effect, and tlie people were so tired 
with being so long from London, and so eager to come 
^ Made tliem take note. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



231 



back, that they flocked to town without fear or forecast, ^ 
and began to show themselves in the streets, as if all the 
danger was over : it was, indeed, surprising to see it, for 
though there died still from a thousand to eighteen hun- 
dred a week, yet the people flocked to town as if all had 
been well. 

The consequence of this was that the bills increased again 
four hundred the very first week in T^ovember ; and, if I 
might believe the physicians, there were above three thou- 
sand fell sick that week, most of them new comers, too. 

One John Cock, a barber in St. Martin's-le-G-rand, was 
an eminent example of this ; I mean of the hasty return of 
the people when the plague was abated. This John Cock 
had left the town with his whole family, and locked up his 
house, and was gone into the country as. many others did ; 
and finding the plague so decreased in ^^"ovember that there 
died but 905 per week of all diseases, he ventured home 
again ; he had in his family ten persons, that is to say, him- 
self and wife, five children, two apprentices, and a maid 
servant ; he had not been returned to his house above a 
week, and began to open his shop, and carry on his trade, 
but the distemper broke out in his family, and within about 
five days they all died, except one ; that is to say, himself, 
his wife, all his five children, and his two apprentices ; 
and only the maid remained alive. 

But the mercy of God was greater to the rest than we 
had reason to expect ; for the malignity, as I have said, of 
the distemper was spent, the contagion was exhausted, and 
also the wintry weather came on apace, and the air was 
clear and cold, with some sharp frosts ; and this increasing 
still, most of those that had fallen sick recovered, and the 
health of the city began to return. There were, indeed, 
some returns of the distemper, even in the month of De- 
cember, and the bills increased near a hundred ; but it went 
off again, and so in a short while things began to return to 
their own channel. And wonderful it was to see how popu- 

1 Forethought. 



232 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAQUE 



lous the city was again all on a sudden ; so that a stranger 
could not miss the numbers that were lost, neither was 
there any miss of the inhabitants as to their dwellings. 
Few or no empty houses were to be seen, or if there were 
some, there was no want of tenants for them. 

I wish I could say that, as the city had a new face, so 
the manners of the people had a new appearance : I doubt 
not but there were many that retained a sincere sense of 
their deliverance, and that were heartily thankful to that 
Sovereign Hand that had protected them in so dangerous a 
time ; it would be very uncharitable to judge otherwise 
in a city so populous, and where the people were so devout 
as they were here in the time of the visitation itself ; but, 
except what of this was to be found in particular families 
and faces, it must be acknowledged that the general prac- 
tice of the people was just as it was before, and very little 
difference was to be seen. 

Some, indeed, said things were worse, that the morals of 
the people declined from this very time ; that the people, 
hardened by the danger they had been in, like seamen after 
a storm is over, were more wicked and more stupid, more 
bold and hardened in their vices and immoralities than they 
were before : but I will not carry it so far, neither ; it would 
take up a history of no small length to give a particular of 
all the gradations by which the course of things in this city 
came to be restored again, and to run in their own channel 
as they did before. 

Some parts of England were now infected as violently as 
London had been ; the cities of Norwich, Peterborough, 
Lincoln, Colchester, and other places were now visited ; 
and the magistrates of London began to set rules for our 
conduct as to corresponding with those cities : it is true, we 
could not pretend to forbid their people coming to London, 
because it was impossible to know them asunder, so, after 
many consultations, the lord mayor and court of aldermen 
were obliged to drop it : all they could do was to warn and 
caution the people not to entertain in their houses, or con- 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



233 



verse with^ any people Avho they knew came from such in- 
fected places. 

But they might as well have talked to the air^ for the peo- 
ple of London thought themselves so plague-free now that 
they were past all admonitions ; they seemed to depend 
upon it that the air was restored, and that the air was like 
a man that had had the small-pox, not capable of being in- 
fected again. This revived that notion that the infection 
was all in the air, that there was no such thing as conta- 
gion from the sick people to the sound ; and so strongly did 
this whimsy prevail among people, that they run altogether 
promiscuously, sick and well ; not the Mahometans, who, 
prepossessed with the principle of predestination, value ^ 
nothing of contagion, let it be in what it will, could be 
more obstinate than the people of London ; they that were 
perfectly sound, and came out of the wholesome air, as we 
call it, into the city, made nothing of going into the same 
houses and chambers, nay, even into the same beds, with 
those that had the distemper upon them, and were not 
recovered. 

Some, indeed, paid for their audacious boldness with 
the price of their lives ; an infinite number fell sick, and 
the physicians had more work than ever, only with this 
difference, that more of their patients recovered, that is to 
say, they generally recovered ; but certainly there were 
more people infected and fell sick now, when there did 
not die above a thousand or twelve hundred a week, than 
there was when there died five or six thousand a week ; so 
entirely negligent were the people at that time in the great 
and dangerous case of health and infection, and so ill were 
they able to take or except ^ of the advice of those who 
cautioned them for their good. 

The people being thus returned, as it were in general, it 
was very strange to find that, in their inquiring after their 
friends, some whole families were so entirely swept away 
' Thiuk. Accept. 



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that there was no remembrance of them left ; neither was 
anybody to be found to possess or show any title to that 
little they had left ; for in such cases, what was to be 
found was generally embezzled and purloined, some gone 
one way, some another. 

It was said such abandoned effects came to the king as 
the universal heir ; upon which we are told, and I suppose 
it was in part true, that the king granted all such as deo- 
dands ^ to the lord mayor and court of aldermen of Lon- 
don, to be applied to the use of the poor, of whom there 
were very many. For it is to be observed, that, though 
the occasions of relief, and the objects of distress were very 
many more in the time of the violence of the plague, than 
now after all was over, yet the distress of the poor was 
more now a great deal than it was then, because all the 
sluices of general charity were shut ; people supposed the 
main occasion to be over, and so stopped their hands ; 
whereas particular objects were still very moving, and the 
distress of those that were poor was very great indeed. 

Though the health of the city was now very much re- 
stored, yet foreign trade did not begin to stir, neither 
would foreigners admit our ships into their ports for a 
great while ; as for the Dutch, the misunderstandings be- 
tween our court and them had broken out into a war the 
year before, so that our trade that way was wholly inter- 
rupted ; but Spain and Portugal, Italy and Barbary, as 
also Hamburg, and all the ports in the Baltic, these were 
all shy of us a great while and v/ould not restore trade 
with us for many months. 

The distemper sweeping away such multitudes, as I 
have observed, many, if not all, of the out-parishes were 

1 Articles devoted to God ; the technical term for "personal chat- 
tels which had been the immediate occasion of the death of a rational 
creature, and for that reason given to God — that is, forfeited to the 
king to be applied to pious uses and distributed in alms." — Century 
Dictionary. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 235 



obliged to make new burying-grouncls, besides that I have 
mentioned in Bunhill Fields, some of which were contin- 
ued, and remain in use to this day ; but others were left 
oif, and which, I confess, I mention with some reflection,^ 
being converted into other uses, or built upon afterwards, 
the dead bodies were disturbed, abused, dug up again, 
some even before the flesh of them was perished from the 
bones, and removed like dung or rubbish to other places. 
Some of those which came within the reach of my obser- 
vations are as follows : — 

First. A piece of ground beyond Goswell Street, near 
Mount Mill, being some of the remains of the old lines or 
fortifications of the city, where abundance were buried 
promiscuously from the parishes of Aldersgate, Olerken- 
well, and even out of the city. This ground, as I take it, 
was since made a physic garden,^ and after that, has been 
built upon. 

Second. A piece of ground just over the Black Ditch, 
as it was then called, at the end of Hollo way Lane, in 
Shoreditch parish ; it has been since made a yard for keep- 
ing hogs and for other ordinary uses, but is quite out of 
use as a burying ground. 

Third. The upper end of Hand Alley, in Bishopsgate 
Street, which was then a green field, and was taken in par- 
ticularly for Bishopsgate parish, though many of the carts 
out of the city brought their dead thither also, particularly 
out of the parish of St. Allhallows on the Wall : this place 
I cannot mention without much regret. It was, as I re- 
member, about two or three years after the plague was 
ceased that Sir Robert Clayton ^ came to be possessed of 
the ground ; it was reported, how true I know not, that it 
fell to the king for want of heirs, all those who had any 
right to it being carried off by the pestilence, and that Sir 
Robert Clayton obtained a grant of it from King Charles 

' Adverse criticism. 
• ^ For herbs used in preparing drugs. 
Lord mayor in 1079-80. 



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II. But^ however he came by it, certain it is the ground 
was let out to build on, or built upon by his order. The 
first house built upon it was a large fair house, still stand- 
ing, which faces the street or way now called Hand Alley, 
which, though called an alley, is as wide as a street : the 
houses in the same row with that house northward are 
built on the very same ground where the poor people were 
buried, and the bodies, on o^oening the ground for the 
foundations, were dug up, some of them remaining so 
plain to be seen that the women's skulls were distinguished 
by their long hair, and of others the flesh was not quite 
perished ; so that the people began to exclaim loudly 
against it, and some suggested that it might endanger a 
a return of the contagion : after which the bones and bod- 
ies, as fast as they came at them, were carried to another 
part of the same ground, and thrown altogether into a 
deep pit, dug on purpose, which now is to be known, in 
that it is not built on, but is a passage to another house at 
the upper end of Rose Alley, just against the door of a 
meeting-house, which has been built there many years 
since ; and the ground is palisadoed off from the rest of the 
passage in a little square ; there lie the bones and remains 
of near two thousand bodies, carried by the dead-carts to 
their grave in that one year. 

Fourth. Besides this, there was a piece of ground in 
Moorfields, by the going into the street Avhich is now 
called Old Bethlem, which was enlarged much, though not 
wholly taken in, on the same occasion. 

N.B. The author of this journal lies buried in that very 
ground, being at his own desire, his sister having been 
buried there a few years before. 

Fifth. Stepney parish, extending itself from the east 
part of London to the north, even to the very edge of 
Shoreditch churchyard, had a piece of ground taken in to 
bury their dead, close to the said churchyard ; and which, 
for that very reason, Avas left open, and is since, I suppose, 
taken into the same churchyard: and they had also two 



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237 



otlier burying-places in Spitalfields, one, where since a 
chapel or tabernacle has been built for ease to this great 
parish^ and another in Petticoat Lane. 

There were no less than five other grounds made use of 
for the parish of Stepney at that time ; one where now 
stands the parish church of St. Paul, Shadwell, and the 
other where now stands the parish church of St. John, at 
Wapping, both which had not the names of parishes at that 
time, but were belonging to Stepney parish. 

I could name many more, but these coming within my 
particular knowledge, the circumstance I thought made it 
of use to record them : from the whole, it may be observed 
that they were obliged in this time of distress to take in 
new burying-grounds in most of the out-parishes for laying 
the prodigious numbers of people which died in so short a 
space of time ; but why care was not taken to keep those 
places separate from ordinary uses, that so the bodies might 
rest undisturbed, that I cannot answer for, and must con- 
fess I think it was wrong ; who were to blame I know not. 

I should have mentioned, that the Quakers ^ had at that 
time also a burying-ground set apart to their use, and 
which they still make use of, and they had also a particular 
dead-cart to fetch their dead from their houses ; and the 
famous Solomon Eagle, who, as I mentioned before,^ had 
predicted the plague as a judgment, and run naked through 
the streets, telling the people that it was come upon them 
to punish them for their sins, had his own wife died ^ the 
very next day of the plague, and was carried, one of the 
first, in the Quaker's dead -cart to their new burying- 
ground. 

I might have thronged this account with many more re- 
markable things which occurred in the time of the infec- 
tion, and particularly what passed between the lord mayor 

' For information in regard to the j)eculiarities and tenets of the 
early Quakers, the student shouhl consult an encyclopjedia. 

See page 98. Die. 



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and the courts which was then at Oxford, and what direc- 
tions were from time to time received from the govern- 
ment for their conduct on this critical occasion. But 
really the court concerned themselves so little, and that 
little they did was of so small import, that I do not see it 
of much moment to mention any part of it here, except 
that of appointing a monthly fast in the city, and the send- 
ing the royal charity to the relief of the poor ; both which 
I have mentioned before. 

Great was the reproach thrown upon those physicians 
who left their patients during the sickness ; and, now they 
came to town again, nobody cared to employ them ; they 
were called deserters, and frequently bills were set up on 
their doors, and written, " Here is a doctor to be let ! " So 
that several of those physicians were fain for a while to sit 
still and look about them, or at least remove their dwell- 
ings and set up in new places, and among new acquaint- 
ance. The like was the case with the clergy, whom the 
people were indeed very abusive to, writing verses and 
scandalous reflections upon them ; setting upon the church 
door, " Here is a pulpit to be let ; " or, sometimes, to 
be sold,^'' which was worse. 

It was not the least of our misfortunes that, with our in- 
fection, when it ceased, there did not cease the spirit of 
strife and contention, slander and reproach, which was 
really the great troubler of the nation's peace before : it 
was said to be the remains of the old animosities which had 
so lately involved us all in blood and disorder. But as the 
late Act of Indemnity'" had lain^ asleep the quarrel itself, 
so the government had recommended family and personal 
peace, upon all occasions, to the whole nation. 

But it could not be obtained, and particularly after the 
ceasing of the plague in London, when any one had seen 
the condition which the people had been in, and how they 
caressed one another at that time, promised to have more 

1 For all political offences committed between lGo7 and 1660; passed 
in lOGO at the time of tlie Restoration. Laid. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



239 



charity for the future, and to raise no more reproaches : I 
say, any one that had seen them then would have thought 
they would have come together with another spirit at last. 
But, I say, it could not be obtained ; the quarrel remained, 
the church ^ and the presbyterians ^ were incompatible : as 
soon as the plague was removed, the dissenting ousted minis- 
ters, who had supplied the pulpits which were deserted by 
the incumbents, retired ; they could expect no other but ^ 
that they ^ should immediately fall upon them and harass 
them with their penal laws,^ accept their preaching while 
they were sick, and persecute them as soon as they were 
recovered again ; this even we, that were of the church, 
thought was hard, and could by no means approve of it. 

But it was the government, and we could say nothing to 
hinder it ; we could only say it was not our doing and we 
could not answer for it. 

On the other hand, the dissenters reproaching those 
ministers of the church with going away, and deserting 
their charge, abandoning the people in their danger, and 
when they had most need of comfort, and the like, this we 
could by no means approve ; for all men have not the same 
faith, and the same courage, and the Scripture commands 
us to judge the most favourably, and according to charity. 

A plague is a formidable enemy, and is armed with ter- 
rors that every man is not sufficiently fortified to resist, or 
prepared to stand the shock against: It is very certain that 
a great many of the clergy, who were in circumstances to 
do it, withdrew, and fled for the safety of their lives ; but 
it is true, also, that a great many of them stayed, and 
many of them fell in the calamity, and in the discharge of 
their duty. 

It is true some of the dissenting, turned-out ministers 
stayed, and their courage is to be commended and highly 

1 The Church of England. 

2 The Presbyterians were hostile to the Episcopalian system of church 
government by bishops. ^ Nothing else than. 

4 The authorized olergy. ^ Laws forbidding dissenters to preach. 



240 



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valued ; but these were not abundance. It cannot be said 
that they all stayed, and that none retired into the country, 
any more than it can be said of the church clergy that they 
all went away ; neither did all those that went away go 
without substituting curates and others in their places 
to do the offices needful, and to visit the sick as far as it 
was practicable ; so that, upon the whole, an allowance of 
charity might have been made on both sides, and we should 
have considered that such a time as this of 1665 is not to 
be paralleled in history, and that it is not the stoutest 
courage that will always support men in such cases. I had 
not said this, but had rather chosen to record the courage 
and religious zeal of those of both sides, who did hazard 
themselves for the service of the poor people in their dis- 
tress, without remembering that any failed in their duty 
on either side, but the want of temper among us has made 
the contrary to this necessary ; some that stayed, not only 
boasting too much of themselves, but reviling those that 
fled, branding them with cowardice, deserting their flocks, 
and acting the part of the hireling, ^ and the like. I recom- 
mend it to the charity of all good people to look back, and 
reflect duly upon the terrors of the time, and whoever 
does so will see that it is not an ordinary strength that 
could support it ; it was not like appearing in the head of 
an army, or charging a body of horse in the field ; but it 
was charging death itself on his pale horse :^ to stay was 
indeed to die, and it could be esteemed nothing less ; es- 
pecially as things appeared at the latter end of August and 
the beginning of September, and as there was reason to ex- 
pect them at that time ; for no man expected, and I dare 
say, believed, that the distemper would take so sudden a 
turn as it did, and fall, immediately, two thousand in a week, 
when there was such a prodigious number of people sick at 
that time as it was known there was ; and then it was that 
many shifted away that had stayed most of the time before. 
Besides, if (rod gave strength to some more than to otliers, 
1 St, John X. 12. 2 lievelaUon vi. 8. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



241 



was it to boast of their ability to abide the stroke, and up- 
braid those that had not the same gift and support, or 
ought they not rather to have been humble and thankful, 
if they were rendered more useful than their brethren ? 

I think it ought to be recorded to the honour of such 
men, as well clergy as physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, 
magistrates, and officers of every kind, as also all useful 
people, who ventured their lives in discharge of their duty, 
as most certainly all such as stayed did to the last degree, 
and several of these kinds did not only venture, but lost, 
their lives on that sad occasion. 

I was once making a list of all such, I mean of all those 
professions and employments who thus died, as I call it, in 
the way of their duty ; but it was impossible for a private 
man to come at a certainty in the particulars. I only re- 
member, that there died sixteen clergymen, two aldermen, 
five physicians, thirteen surgeons, within the city and liber- 
ties, before the beginning of September. But this being, 
as I said before, the crisis and extremity of the infection, 
it can be no complete list. As to inferior people, I think 
there died six and forty constables and headboroughs ^ in 
the two parishes of Stepney and Whitechapel ; but I could 
not carry my list on, for when the violent rage of the dis- 
temper, in September, came upon us, it drove us out of all 
measure. Men did then no more die by tale and by num- 
ber ; they might put out a weekly bill, and call them seven 
or eight thousand, or what they pleased ; it is certain they 
died by heaps, and were buried by heaps ; that is to say, 
without account. And if I might believe some people, who 
were more abroad and more conversant with those things 
than I, though I was public enough for one that had no 
more business to do than I had ; I say, if we may believe 
them, there was not many less buried those first three weeks 
in September than twenty thousand per week ; however 
the others aver the truth of it, yet I rather choose to keep to 
the public account ; seven or eight thousand per week is 
* Heads of boroughs, officers with the duties of petty constables. 
16 



242 



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enough to make good all that I have said of the terror of 
those times ; and it is much to the satisfaction of me that 
write, as well as those that read, to be able to say that 
everything is set down with moderation, and rather within 
compass than beyond it. 

Upon all these accounts, I say, I could wish, when we 
were recovered, our conduct had been more distinguished 
for charity and kindness, in remembrance of the past ca- 
lamity, and not so much in valuing ourselves upon our 
boldness in staying, as if all men were cowards that fly from 
the hand of God, or that those who stay do not sometimes 
owe their courage to their ignorance, and despising the 
hand of their Maker, which is a criminal kind of despera- 
tion, and not a true courage. 

I cannot but leave it upon record that the civil officers, 
such as constables, headboroughs, lord-mayor^s and sheriff^s 
men, also parish officers, whose business it was to take 
charge of the poor, did their duties, in general, with as 
much courage as any, and, perhaps, with more ; because 
their work was attended with more hazards, and lay more 
among the poor, who were more subject to be infected, and 
in the most pitiful plight when they were taken with the 
infection. But then it must be added, too, that a great 
number of them died ; indeed, it was scarcely possible it 
should be otherwise. 

I have not said one word here about the physic or prep- 
arations that were ordinarily made use of on this terrible 
occasion ; I mean we that frequently went abroad up and 
down the streets, as I did ; much of this was talked of in 
the books and bills ^ of our quack doctors, of whom I have 
said enough already. It may, however, be added, that the 
college of physicians were daily publishing several prepa- 
rations, which they had considered of in the process of their 
practice ; and which, being to be had in print, I avoid re- 
peating them for that reason. 

' Advertisements. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



243 



One tiling I could not help observing, what befel one of 
the quacks, who published that he had a most excellent 
preservative against the plague, which whoever kept 
about them should never be infected, or liable to infection. 
This man, who, we may reasonably suppose, did not go 
abroad without some of this excellent preservative in his 
pocket, yet was taken by the distemper, and carried off in 
two or three days. 

I am not of the number of the physic-haters or physic- 
despisers ; on the contrary, I have often mentioned the re- 
gard I had to the dictates of my particular friend Dr. 
Heath ; but yet I must acknowledge I made use of little or 
nothing, except, as I have observed, to keep a preparation 
of strong scent, to have ready in case I met with anything 
of offensive smells, or went too near any burying-place or 
dead body. 

Neither did I do, what I know some did, keep the spirits 
high and hot with cordials, and wine, and such things, and 
which, as I observed, one learned physician used himself so 
much to, as that he could not leave them off when the infec- 
tion was quite gone, and so became a sot for all hislife after. 

I remember my friend the doctor used to say that there 
was a certain set of drugs and preparations which were all 
certainly good and useful in the case of an infection ; out 
of which, or with which, physicians might make an infinite 
variety of medicines, as the ringers of bells make several 
hundred different rounds of music, by the changing and 
order of sound but in six bells ; and that all these prep- 
arations shall be really very good. " Therefore, said he, 

I do not wonder that so vast a throng of medicines is 
offered in the present calamity ; and almost every phy- 
sician prescribes or prepares a different thing, as his judg- 
ment or experience guides him ; but,^^ says my friend, 
" let all the prescriptions of all the physicians in London 
be examined ; and it will be found that they are all com- 
pounded of the same things, with such variations only as 
the particular fancy of the doctor leads him to ; so that," 



244: JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 

says he^ " every man^ judging a little of his own constitu- 
tion and manner of his living, and circumstances of his 
being infected, may direct his own medicines out of the 
ordinary drugs and preparations. Only that/^ says he, 
" some recommend one thing as most sovereign, and some 
another; some/'' says he, '^'^ think that Pill. Euff.,^ which 
is called itself the anti-pestilential pill, is the best prepara- 
tion that can be made ; others think that Venice Treacle ^ 
is sufficient of itself to resist the contagion, and 1," says 
he, think as both these think, viz., that the first is good 
to take beforehand, to prevent it, and the last, if touched, 
to expel it.^^ According to this opinion, I several times 
took Venice Treacle, and a sound sweat upon it, and 
thought myself as well fortified against the infection as 
any one could be fortified by the power of physic. 

As for quackery and mountebank, of which the town 
was so full, I listened to none of them, and observed, often 
since, with some wonder, that, for two years after the 
plague, I scarcely ever heard one of them about the town. 
Some fancied they were all swept away in the infection to 
a man, and were for calling it a particular mark of God^s 
vengeance upon them, for leading the poor people into the 
pit of destruction, merely for the lucre of a little money 
they got by them ; but I cannot go that length neither ; 
that abundance of them died is certain — many of them 
came within the reach of my own knowledge ; but that all 
of them were swept off, I much question. I believe, rather, 
they fled into the country, and tried their practices upon 
the people there, who were in apprehension of the infec- 
tion before it came among them. 

This, however, is certain, not a man of them appeared, 
for a great while, in or about London. There were, in- 
deed, several doctors, who published bills recommending 
their several physical preparations for cleansing the body, 

' Pllulm Rufi^ an aperient, into the composition of wliicli enter 
aloes and myrrh. 

^ A cordial of many ingredients, including opium. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



245 



as they call it, after tlie plague, and needful, as they said, 
for such people to take, who had been visited and had 
been cured ; whereas, I must own, I believe that it was the 
opinion of the most eminent physicians of that time that 
the plague was itself a sufficient purge ; and that those 
who escaped the infection needed no physic to cleanse 
their bodies of any other things ; the running sores, the 
tumours, etc., which were broken and kept open by the 
direction of the physicians, having sufficiently cleansed 
them ; and that all other distempers, and causes of dis- 
tempers, were effectually carried off that way ; and as the 
physicians gave this as their opinion, wherever they came, 
the quacks got little business. 

There were, indeed, several little hurries which happened 
after the decrease of the plague, and which, whether they 
were contrived to fright and disorder the people, as some 
imagined, I cannot say, but sometimes we were told the 
plague would return by such a time ; and the famous 
Solomon Eagle, the naked Quaker I have mentioned, 
prophesied evil tidings every day ; and several others tell- 
ing us that London had not been sufficiently scourged, 
and the sorer and severer strokes were yet behind : had 
they stopped there, or had they descended to particulars, 
and told us that the city should be the next year destroyed 
by fire, then, indeed, when we had seen it come to pass, 
we should not have been to blame to have paid more than 
common respect to their prophetic spirits ; at least, we 
should have wondered at them, and have been more 
serious in our inquiries after the meaning of it, and 
whence they had the foreknowledge ; but as they gener- 
ally told us of a relapse into the plague, we have had no 
concern since that about them ; yet, by those frequent 
clamours, we were all kept with some kind of apprehen- 
sions constantly upon us ; and, if any died suddenly, or 
if the spotted fevers at any time increased, we were pres- 
ently alarmed ; much more if the number of the plague 



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increased ; for, to tlie end of the year, there were always 
betAveen two and three hundred of the plague. On any 
of these occasoins, I say, we were alarmed anew. 

Those who remember the city of London before the fire, 
must remember that there was then no such place as that 
we now call Newgate Market ; but, in the middle of the 
street, which is now called Blow Bladder Street, and which 
had its name from the butchers, who used to kill and dress 
their sheep there (and who, it seems, had a custom to blow 
up their meat with pipes, to make it look thicker and fat- 
ter than it was, and were punished there for it by the 
lord mayor), I say, from the end of the street towards 
Newgate, there stood two long rows of shambles for the 
selling meat. 

It was in those shambles, that two persons falling down 
dead as they were buying meat, gave rise to a rumour that 
the meat was all infected, which, though it might affright 
the people, and spoiled the market for two or three days, 
yet it appeared plainly afterwards that there was nothing 
of truth in the suggestion : but nobody can account for 
the possession of fear when it takes hold of the mind. 
However, it pleased God, by the continuing of the winter 
weather, so to restore the health of the city that by Febru- 
ary following we reckoned the distemper quite ceased, and 
then we were not easily frighted again. 

There was still a question among the learned, and at 
first perplexed the people a little ; and that was, in what 
manner to purge the houses and goods where the plague 
had been, and how to render them ^ habitable again which 
had been left empty during the time of the plague ; abun- 
dance of perfumes and preparations were prescribed by 
physicians, some of one kind, some of another ; in which 
the people who listened to them put themselves to a great, 
and, indeed, in my opinion, to an unnecessary expense ; and 
the poorer people, who only set open their windows night 

' Those. 



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247 



and day, burnt brimstone, pitch, and gunpowder, and such 
things, in their rooms, did as well as the best ; nay, the 
eager people, who, as I said above, came home in haste, 
and at all hazards, found little or no inconvenience in their 
houses, nor in their goods, and did little or nothing to them. 

However, in general, prudent, cautious people did enter 
into some measures for airing and sweetening their houses, 
and burnt perfumes, incense, benjamin, ^ resin, and sul- 
phur, in their rooms close shut up, and then let the air 
carry it all out with a blast of gunpowder ; others caused 
large fires to be made all day and all night, for several 
days and nights. By the same token that ^ two or three 
were pleased to set their houses on fire, and so effectually 
sweetened them by burning them down to the ground ; as 
particularly one at Eatclifi, one in Holborn, and one at 
Westminster, besides two or three that were set on fire, 
but the fire was happily got out again before it went far 
enough to burn down the houses ; and one citizen^s ser- 
vant, I think it was in Thames Street, carried so much 
gunpowder into his master^s house, for clearing it of the 
infection, and managed it so foolishly, that he blew up 
part of the roof of the house. But the time was not fully 
come that the city was to be purged with fire, nor was it 
far off, for within nine months more I saw it all lying in 
ashes ; when, as some of our quaking philosophers ^ pretend, 
the seeds of the plague were entirely destroyed, and not 
before ; a notion too ridiculous to speak of here, since had 
the seeds of the plague remained in the houses, not to be 
destroyed but by fire, how has it been that they have not 
since broken out ? seeing all those buildings in the suburbs 
and liberties, all in the great parishes of Stepney, White- 
chapel, Aldgate, Bishopsgate, Shoreditch, Oripplegate, and 
St. Giles's, where the fire never came, and where the plague 
raged with the greatest violence, remain still in the same 
condition they were in before. 

' Benzoin. A phrase introducing a corroborative circumstance. 

^ Referring to the Quakers mentioned above, page 245. 



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JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



But to leave these things just as I found them, it was 
certain that those people who were more than ordinarily 
cautious of their health, did take particular directions for 
what they called seasoning of their houses, and abundance 
of costly things were consumed on that account, which, I 
cannot but say, not only seasoned those houses as they de- 
sired, but filled the air with very grateful and wholesome 
smells, which others had the share of the benefit of, as well 
as those who were at the expenses of them. 

Though the poor came to town very precipitantly, as I 
have said, yet, I must say, the rich made no such haste. 
The men of business, indeed, came up, but many of them 
did not bring their families to town till the spring came 
on, and that they saw reason to depend upon it that the 
plague would not return. 

The court, indeed, came up soon after Christmas ; but 
the nobility and gentry, except such as depended upon, and 
had employment under the administration, did not come 
so soon. 

I should have taken notice here that, notwithstanding 
the violence of the plague in London and other places, yet 
it was very observable that it was never on board the fleet, 
and yet for some time there was a strange press ^ in the river, 
and even in the streets, for seamen to man the fleet. But it 
was in the beginning of the year, when the plague was 
scarce begun, and not at all come down to that part of the 
city where they usually press for seamen ; and though a 
war with the Dutch was not at all grateful to the people at 
that time, and the seamen went with a kind of reluctancy 
into the service, and many complained of being dragged 
into it by force, yet it proved, in the event, a happy vio- 
lence to several of them, who had ^ probably perished in 
the general calamity, and who, after the summer service 
was over, though they had cause to lament the desolation 
of their families, who, when they came back, were many 

> The press gaug, seizing men for tlie navy. - Would have. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



249 



of tliem in their graves ; yet tliey had room to be thankful 
that they were carried out of the reach of it^ though so 
much against their wills. We, indeed, had a hot war with 
the Dutch that year, and one very great engagement at 
sea/ in which the Dutch were worsted ; but we lost a great 
many men and some ships ; but, as I observed, the plague 
was not in the fleet, and when they came to lay up the 
ships in the river, the violent part of it began to abate. 

I would be glad if I could close the account of this 
melancholy year with some particular examples histori- 
cally ; I mean of the thankfulness to God, our Preserver, for 
our being delivered from this dreadful calamity. Certainly 
the circumstances of the deliverance, as well as the terrible 
enemy we were delivered from, called upon the whole 
nation for it ; the circumstances of the deliverance were, 
indeed, very remarkable, as I have in part mentioned 
already ; and, particularly, the dreadful condition which 
we were all in, when we were, to the surprise of the whole 
town, made joyful with the hope of a stop to the infection. 

Nothing but the immediate finger of God, nothing but 
omnipotent power could have done it ; the contagion de- 
spised all medicine, death raged in every corner ; and had it 
gone on as it did then, a few weeks more would have cleared 
the town of all and everything that had a soul. Men 
everywhere began to despair, every heart failed them for 
fear ; people were made desperate through the anguish of 
their souls, and the terrors of death sat in the very faces 
and countenances of the people. 

In that very moment, when we might very well say. 

Vain was the help of man^^ ;^ I say, in that very moment 
it pleased God, with a most agreeable surprise, to cause the 
fury of it to abate, even of itself ; and the malignity de- 
clining, as 1 have said, though infinite numbers were sick, 
yet fewer died ; and the very first week's bill decreased 
1843, a vast number indeed. 

' At Lowestoft. Psalm \yi. il. 



250 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



It is impossible to express the change that appeared in 
the very countenances of the people^ that Thursday morn- 
ing, when the weekly bill came out : it might have been 
perceived in their countenances that a secret surprise and 
smile of joy sat on everybody's face ; they shook one another 
by the hands in the streets, who would hardly go on the 
same side of the way with one another before ; where the 
streets were not too broad, they would open their windows 
and call from one house to another, and asked how they 
did, and if they had heard the good news that the plague 
was abated ; some would return, when they said good news, 
and ask, " What good news ? " And when they answered 
that the plague was abated, and the bills decreased almost 
two thousand, they would cry out, " Grod be praised ; " 
and would weep aloud for joy, telling them they had 
heard nothing of it ; and such was the joy of the people 
that it was as it were life to them from the grave. I could 
almost set down as many extravagant things done in the 
excess of their joy as of their grief ; but that would be to 
lessen the value of it. 

I must confess myself to have been very much dejected 
just before this happened ; for the prodigious numbers that 
were taken sick the week or two before, besides those that 
died, was such, and the lamentations were so great every- 
where, that a man must have seemed to have acted even 
against his reason if he had so much as have expected to 
escape ; and as there was hardly a house but mine in all my 
neighbourhood but what was infected, so had it gone on, it 
would not have been long that there would have been any 
more neighbours to be infected ; indeed, it is hardly credible 
what dreadful havoc the last three weeks had made ; for if I 
might believe the person whose calculations I always found 
very well grounded, there were not less than thirty thousand 
people dead, and near one hundred thousand fallen sick in 
the three weeks I speak of ; for the number that sickened 
was surprising, indeed, it was astonishing, and those whose 
courage upheld them all the time before, sunk under it now. 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAQUE 261 



In the middle of their distress^ when the condition of 
the city of London was ^o truly calamitous, just then it 
pleased God, as it were, by his immediate hand, to disarm 
this enemy ; the poison was taken out of the sting ; it was 
wonderful : even the physicians themselves were surprised 
at it : wherever they visited they found their patients bet- 
ter ; either they had sweated kindly, or the tumours were 
broke, or the carbuncles went down, and the inflammations 
round them changed colour, or the fever was gone, or the 
violent headache was assuaged, or some good symptom was 
in the case ; so that in a few days everybody was recover- 
ing ; whole families that were infected and down, that had 
ministers praying with them, and expected death every 
hour, were revived and healed, and none died at all out of 
them. 

Nor was this by any new medicine found out, or new 
method of cure discovered, or by any experience in the 
operation which the physicians or surgeons attained to ; 
but it was evidently from the secret invisible hand of Him 
that had at first sent this disease as a judgment upon us ; 
and let the atheistic part of mankind call my saying what 
they please, it is no enthusiasm. ^ It was acknowledged, at 
that time, by all mankind. The disease was enervated, and 
its malignity spent, and let it proceed from whencesoever 
it will, let the philosophers search for reasons in nature to 
account for it by, and labour as much as. they will to lessen 
the debt they owe to their Maker ; those physicians who 
had the least share of religion in them, were obliged to 
acknowledge that it was all supernatural, that it was ex- 
traordinary, and that no account could be given of it. 

If I should say that this is a visible summons to us all 
to thankfulness, especially we that were under the terror 
of its increase, perhaps it may be thought by some, after 
the sense ^ of the thing was over, an officious canting of 
religious things, preaching a sermon instead of writing a 
history ; making myself a teacher, instead of giving my 

' Extravagance. ' The actual feeling and experience. 



252 



JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE 



observations of things ; and this restrains me very much 
from going on here^ as I might otherwise do ; but if ten 
lepers were healed, and but one returned to give thanks/ 
I desire to be as that one, and to be thankful for myself. 

Nor will I deny but there were abundance of people who 
to all appearance were very thankful at that time : for their 
mouths were stopped, even the mouths of those whose 
hearts were not extraordinarily long affected with it ; but 
the impression was so strong at that time that it could not 
be resisted — no, not by the worst of the people. 

It was a common thing to meet people in the street that 
were strangers and that we knew nothing at all of, express- 
ing their surprise. Going one day through Aldgate," and a 
pretty many people being passing and repassing, there 
comes a man out of the end of the Minories, and looking a 
little up the street and down, he throws his hands abroad, 
'^^Lord, what an alteration is here! Why, last week I 
came along here, and hardly anybody was to be seen." 
Another man, I heard him, adds to his words, ^^^Tis all 
wonderful ; "tis all a dream. Blessed be God,'^ says a 
third man, ^''and let us give thanks to him, for ^tis all his 
own doing." Human help and human skill were at an end. 
These were all strangers to one another, but such saluta- 
tions as these were frequent in the street every day ; and in 
spite of a loose behaviour, the very common people went 
along the streets, giving God thanks for their deliverance. 

It was now, as I said before, the people had cast off all 
apprehensions, and that too fast ; indeed, we were no more 
afraid now to pass by a man with a white cap upon his 
head, or with a cloth wrapt round his neck, or with his leg 
limping, occasioned by the sores in his groin, all which 
were frightful to the last degree but the week before ; but 
now the street was full of them, and these poor recovering 
creatures, give them their due, appeared very sensible of 
their unexpected deliverance ; and I should wrong them 
very much, if I should not acknowledge that I believe 
1 St. Luke xvii. 12-19. 



JOUIINAL OF THE PLAGUE 



253 



many of them were really thankful ; but I must own that 
for the generality of the people it might too justly be said 
of them, as was said of the children of Israel, after their 
being delivered from the host of Pharaoh, when they 
passed the Red sea, and looked back and saw the Egyptians 
overwhelmed in the water,^ viz., ''That they sang his 
praise, but they soon forgot his works/^ 

I can go no farther here. I should be counted censorious, 
and perhaps unjust, if I should enter into the unpleasing 
work of reflecting, whatever cause there was for it, upon 
the unthankfulness and return of all manner of wicked- 
ness among us, which I was so much an eye-witness of my- 
self. I shall conclude the account of this calamitous year, 
therefore, with a coarse but a sincere stanza of my own, 
which I placed at the end of my ordinary memorandnms, 
the same year they were written ; — 



A dreadful plague in London was, 

In the year sixty-five, 
Which swept an hundred thousand souls 

Away ; yet I alive. 

H. F. 

^ Exodus xiv., XV. 



THE END 



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When you put Longmans' School Grammar in my hands, some year or 
two ago, I used it a Httle while with a boy of nine years, with perfect satisfac- 
tion and approval. The exigencies of the boy's school arrangements inter- 
cepted that course in grammar and caused the book to be laid aside. To-day 
I have taken the book and have examined it all, from cover to cover. It i? 
simply a perfect grammar. Its beginnings are made with utmost gentleness 
and reasonableness, and it goes at least quite as far as in any portion of our 
public schools course it is, for the present, desirable to think of going. The 
author has adjusted his book to the very best conceivable methods of teaching, 
and goes hand in hand with the instructor as a guide and a help. Grammar 
should, so taught, become a pleasure to teacher and pupil. Especially do I 
relish the author's pages of ' Notes for Teachers,' at the end of the book. The 
man who could write these notes should enlarge them into a monograph on the 
teaching of English Grammar. He would, thereby, add a valuable contribu- 
tion to our stock of available pedagogic helps. I must add in closing, that 
while the book in question has, of course, but small occasion to touch disputed 
points of English Grammar, it never incurs the censure that school grammars 
are almost sure to deserve, of insufficient acquaintance with modern linguistic 
science. In short, the writer has shown himself scientifically, as well as peda- 
gogically, altogether competent for his task." 

—Principal Samuel Thurber. 

high school, fort WAYNE, IND. 

" . . . . It is not often that one has occasion to be enthusiastic over a 
school-book, especially over an English Grammar, but out of pure enthusiasm, 
I write to express my grateful appreciation of this one. It is, without exception, 
the best English Grammar that I have ever seen for children from twelve to 
fifteen years of age. It is excellent in matter and method. Every page shows 
the hand of a wise and skilful teacher. The author has been content to present 
the facts of English Grammar in a way intelligible to children. The book is so 
intelligible and so interesting from start to finish that only the genius of dulness 
can make it dry. There are no definitions inconsistent with the facts of our 
language, no facts at war with the definitions. There are other grammars that 
are more complete " and as correct in teaching, but not one to be compared 
with it in adaptation to the needs of young students. It will not chloroform the 
intelhgence." — Principal C. T. Lane. 

high school, minooka, ill. 

" We introduced your School Grammar into our schools the first of this 
term, and are highly satisfied with the results. In my judgment there is no 
better work extant for the class of pupils for which it is designed." 

— Principal E. F. Adams. 

newark academy, newark, n. j. 

" We are using with much satisfaction your Longmans' School Grammar, 
adopted for use in our classes over a year since. Its strong points are simplic- 
ity of arrangement, and abundance of examples for practice. In these par- 
ticulars I know of no other book equal to it." — Dr. S. A. Farrand. 

Prospectus showmg co7itents and specijnen pages may be had of the Pub' 

Ushers. 



LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., 15 East Sixteenth Street, New York. 



LONGMANS, GREEN, &^ CO.' S PUBLICATIONS, 



LONGMANS' SCHOOL GEOGRAPHY. 

By George G. Chisholm, M.A., B.Sc, Author of "Handbook of Com- 
mercial Geography," "A Smaller Commercial Geography," etc., etc., 
and C. H. Leete, A.M., Ph.D., Fellow of the American Geographical 
Society. Fourth edition, revised, large i2mo, with 70 Illustrations. 384 
pages. $1.25. 

The aim of this text-book is to present in an attractive form those facts of 
geography that are really foundational, i.e., those that are most important to 
know, and are most effective as discipline. All countries and regions of the 
world are, therefore, not treated upon a uniform plan or according to a rigid 
outline, but that which is most distinctive and characteristic in each is presented 
with due relief. And, in order that pupils may realize that to understand is in 
geography equally, if not more, important than to memorize, special promi- 
nence is given to the relation of cause and effect. The book is especially suited 
for use in Normal Schools and in Schools where more than elementary geo- 
graphical work is done, 

*^ A descriptive circular of the book and of the Companion Atlas and Book of 
Questions, may be had of the Publishers. 

MILTON ACADEMY. 

It is the best Geography that I have seen, and we are using it in this school." 

— Harrison O. Apthorp, Milton, Mass. 

MARIANNA MALE INSTITUTE, 

" It is the best thing of the kind I have ever seen. It is just what I wish. I 
shall be pleased to introduce it." — T. A. Futrall, Marianna, Ark. 

PREPARATORY SCHOOL, WASHINGTON, D. C. 

"... Find it an excellent book. . . . It is striking and interesting — 
different from any work on the subject I have ever seen.'' — A. P. Montague. 

" The closing paragraph of the prospectus is much closer to the opinion of 
the reviewer than such paragraphs usually are : ' This text-book adapts itself to 
pupils of intelligence, and will be highly appreciated by all teachers imbued 
with a spirit for teaching real geography, not attempting to supersede their 
functions by dictating the length of the daily tasks or the questions that shall 
be asked, but furnishing a body of material so selected, arranged, and pre- 
sented that its perusal is at once pleasurable, suggestive, and of substantial 
value.' This is perfectly true. . . , On the whole the book is remarkably 
successful." — Nation, N. Y. 

" This book is the forerunner of a change which must speedily be effected 
in geographical teaching, and is itself a product of the movement for reform in 
England, which originated with the Geographical Society." 

— Wisconsifi jotirnal of Education. 

". . . Probably the best book of the kind ever published in our language, 
and ought to help in improving the instruction of our schools in geography. 
Messrs, Chisholm and Leete's book is valuable for its method, and it is this fact 
which entitles it to the attention of teachers. " — Boston Beacon. 

" It has a system of cross references that is very valuable and constantly 
reminds the pupil that all are parts of a whole. It does not merely state 
facts, but attempts to show a cause for each phenomenon, so that t^^e study of 
geography is not mere memoriter work." — Educational Courant. 



LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., 15 East Sixteenth Street, New York. 



